Shadowland
by Isodriel
Summary: AU S1. Buffy Summers is on her way out of Sunnydale to escape her fate as the Chosen One when she's taken under the wing of a certain dark haired vampire, who becomes her unlikely guide and travelling companion. BA
1. The Runaway

**Author's Note: **Just got to wondering what it would've been like for Buffy if she had Angel as her guide and "watcher" during her early years as a Slayer rather than Giles. Feedback welcome.

**1. The Runaway**

That night, the clouds were tearing themselves apart, sending rain down in cold, rippling curtains of high-velocity droplets. The streets were awash with rainwater several inches deep, the branches of trees dipped and swayed under the force of the wind and every living creature in the town of Sunnydale, except for one, had managed to seek some kind of shelter from the merciless storm.

And that one creature, the only one desperate enough to venture out of doors on such a day, was walking as best she could along Escondido Avenue, heading towards the junction at Third Street. From there on, she knew it wasn't far to the sign that marked Sunnydale's limits. The hood of a thin waterproof jacket obscured her face from view, but somehow the rain had gotten through and soaked her honey blonde hair so that was plastered uncomfortably to her neck and forehead.

Her petite form was almost bent double as she fought the wind-driven rainfall, trying desperately not to get knocked over. She had long since stopped worrying about her feet – since her so-called waterproof boots had managed to absorb massive amounts of icy water, she could no longer even feel them. The best she could hope for was that the numbness would pass once she got out of the storm. Not that she knew when that was going to be, but in her situation she could either be optimistic or collapse sobbing to the ground. It wasn't much of a choice.

---

Her mother had said that. "I know it's not much of a choice. But this is the best we can do right now, Buffy."

"Yeah, right. The only reason you moved us out to this sad excuse for a one-horse town was because it was the furthest place you could find from LA. Why don't you just admit it?"

Joyce Summers had sighed and smiled patiently at her daughter. "I think we can be happy here. And besides, like I said, you have choice. Not a very good one, but…"

"Either I stay here and get treated by a shrink, or I move out to LA long enough for dad to find me a good … what did he call it? … 'correctional boarding school'." She had blinked hard to stop the tears from welling up from the memory of her father's words and the icy tone that had accompanied them. "You call that a choice?"

"Buffy, we're trying to _help_ you –"

"You're trying to help yourselves!" The fine thread of calm that she had been hanging onto had finally snapped. "Dad can't stand the sight of me anymore – and God forbid that anyone from work should find out about his delinquent daughter – so of course he wants to send me away. And you…" She was choking up, on the verge of tears. _No, no. Not yet. _"You won't need me once Dawn moves out here."

"You know that's not true. I love both of you."

Buffy had looked into her eyes for a long, silent moment. "Maybe. But you're closer to her. And she hasn't given you any reason to be ashamed of her." Her voice hardened, took on a faintly mocking tone. "That kind of tips the scales, doesn't it, mom?"

And then it had been Joyce's turn to snap. "For God's sake, Buffy! Stop acting like some innocent victim! You _burned down _a building! That's a little hard to get over, but we are _trying_. We want to help you. We want to understand _why_ you did –"

"I've told you why! You asked, and I told you! What more do you want?"

"Darling." This time the smile was less patient, more patronizing. "You can't expect us to believe any of your stories about … vampires and monsters and the like. They're just not true."

"I expect you to believe it because _I _believe it." She had hated herself for the plaintive little quiver in her voice.

Her mother had sighed again and given her a pitying look. "I know. That's what worries me."

And that's when it dawned on Buffy that she had seen her mother give that same pitying look to complete strangers before, but never to her. _She thinks I'm crazy. _Joyce Summers may have loved the girl Buffy used to be – the one who spent most of her time at the mall and thought life revolved around boys and popularity – but the person Buffy had become was a stranger to her. _She wants me to get 'treated' only so I can go back to being a shallow, purposeless airhead. _

It amazed her to realize how impossible that would be. She really was a different person now. She might not want to be the Chosen One – and with Merrick gone, who was going to force her to? – but she couldn't pretend as though nothing important had happened during the past few months. She couldn't let herself be treated like some psych patient being kept on a short leash. She couldn't stay in a place where the indifference in her mother's eyes would hurt her a little more each day.

It hadn't taken long to make the decision to get the hell out of Sunnydale.

---

Even the rats were sheltering from the rain.

He could hear the occasional faint squeak and scuffle signaling their presence, but he hadn't caught sight of one all day and he was starting feel the thirst for blood gnawing at him. He didn't really feel the cold, and the rain didn't bother him, but the thirst worried him. A _lot_. It caused memories to flicker in and out of his consciousness – memories of soft throats with blood-filled veins pulsing just beneath the skin. Human throats. And what was worse, he could feel himself longing for the taste of the blood those throats had to offer.

But then he remembered the screams, the pleas for mercy, the terrified sobbing. They played on endlessly in his mind, one after another, like some heart-wrenching gruesome song, and all he could do was listen. He knew he deserved to hear it. Eventually it would stop, but until then he would just let himself be tortured by the voices of the countless victims whose lives he had taken so much pleasure in destroying. _Monster. Not just then, but now as well. It's all I ever was. All I ever will be._

But then something interrupted the harsh torrent of his thoughts, and it wasn't a voice from his memory. These sounds had an altogether different quality and they were coming from close by. He could hear the rapid-fire thudding of blows being parried and the low, exasperated grunts of someone trying and failing to win a fight. After a brief internal struggle between wanting to ignore any potential difficulties and wanting to help anyone who might need him, he started to move silently towards the sounds, which were coming from the end of the nearest alleyway.

"You know, my food doesn't usually fight back." It was a male vampire, his brow ridged, fangs exposed. He was speaking to the slight figure standing opposite him, gripping a stake in one hand.

"Okay, no _way_ am I being your after-dinner snack, so you can stop right there with the 'my food' crap. I have a name." It was, surprisingly enough, a girl's voice. As she finished speaking she lunged forward to drive home the stake, but the vampire evaded her and delivered a brutal blow to her face.

"Really? It wouldn't happen to be _Blood-bait_, would it?" the vampire taunted, as she staggered backwards. Her movements were sluggish and she was clearly not in prime fighting condition; as the vampire punched her again her grip on the stake slackened and it almost slipped out of her hand.

But then she seemed to gather her strength and suddenly her leg was whipping out in a roundhouse kick that brought the vampire onto the ground with a loud thud. As he scrambled to get up again she backhanded him across the face and, moving with terrifying speed, planted a booted foot firmly on his chest to keep him down.

She bent over him with her stake raised. "No, actually. It's _Slayer_." She waited long enough for a horrified expression to dawn on his face before driving the stake through his heart.

The man watching her drew further back into the shadows as she straightened up and looked around. He saw the uncertainty in her movements as she bent down to pick up a large backpack, the way she winced as she slipped it on. He saw the faint trembling in her limbs as she tried to stand up and buckled under its weight.

He saw that she swayed on her feet for a long moment before her body slumped, as though in slow motion, to the ground.

---


	2. The Bluebird

**Author's Note: **I place an embarrassing amount of value on feedback, so thanks to everyone who bothered to leave a review.

**2. The Bluebird**

In the dim light cast by a single bedside lamp, the damp tendrils of hair lying across her face became impossibly delicate threads of gleaming gold. His gaze took in that hair, the thick lashes fringing her flickering eyelids and the occasional twitch of her supple, rose-tinted mouth, with a kind of awe. The quilt he had covered her with was the thickest he could find – incidentally also the _only_ one he could find – but once in a while her body would shudder beneath it and she would moan as though in pain. It worried him. The last thing he needed was a dead body in his bed.

He still wasn't quite sure why he had carried her, backpack and all, from the near-flooded alley to the dilapidated motel room he currently called home. Part of him knew he might well end up regretting it. That part was still yelling at the rest of him for being stupid enough to bring her here, but deep down he knew that the girl who called herself the Slayer needed his help. Once she recovered there'd be time enough to leave her to deal with her own issues.

He refused to admit, even to himself, that his desire to help her stemmed at all from his appreciation of her beauty. Because she _was _beautiful, there was no doubt about it. Every moment he spent watching her sleep only confirmed the fact, but somehow he couldn't force himself to turn away from the sight of her. He wasn't sure what to do with her, other than make sure that she was warm and wait for her regain consciousness – or _not _regain consciousness, depending on just how bad his luck was.

---

The first thing Buffy became aware of as she awoke was that she was lying down, on her side, in a bed that wasn't familiar enough to be her own. After that she began to feel the faint numbness in her fingers and toes, the moisture in her still-damp hair and the comfortable weight of a quilt covering her up to her shoulders. A brief moment of pure panic was followed by slightly calmer wariness as she realized that she was still wearing all of her clothes except for her boots.

She parted her eyelids just enough to allow for a sliver of vision, and it was enough to see that she wasn't alone. She fought a second surge of panic and tried to keep her breathing even, despite the sudden pounding of her heart. _Whoever it is could've killed me by now, if that's what he was after. _

She had seen enough to establish that the silent figure seated by the bed was a man – pale skin, dark brown hair, dark eyes, with a solemn, almost concerned expression on his face. _Which doesn't really give him that whole "psycho killer gonna go postal any second" aura, but then you never know. Maybe Jack the Ripper looked like that just before he got started on the … ripping._

In the end she couldn't just go on pretending to be unconscious. She was, after all, the Slayer. If there was fighting to be done, she wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. So she let her eyes snap open, going from apparent deep sleep to wide-awake consciousness in less than a second.

The Potential Psycho Killer, as she'd already started referring to him in her head, jumped in surprise and looked at her in confusion. They regarded each other for an endlessly long and very awkward moment, until he finally cleared his throat. "You're awake."

_Brilliant observation there, Sherlock. _Her mouth felt like it was full of dry lint and she had to swallow hard before attempting to speak. "Two things." It came out in a husky whisper and he leaned forward so that he could catch her next words better. "One – where the hell am I? And two – I wouldn't need a weapon to kill you."

She wasn't prepared for amusement to appear on his face. She had been going for intimidation, possibly even terror. Amusement was _not _a satisfactory result.

"You're in a room at the Bluebird motel. Number 22, to be a little more specific. And I'm sure you wouldn't, but maybe you'd like to hang on to this anyway."

To her amazement, he handed over an extremely familiar-looking sharpened wooden stake. She let her fingers trace the grooves in the sandpapered wood. "Mr. Pointy." She looked up at him quickly. "Where'd you find him?"

He arched an eyebrow and she gave herself a mental kick. _Idiot. _"It. I meant _it._ Because this is a thing, and things don't have sexual organs." _Oh my God. I'm talking to him about sexual organs. Shut up already! _"Mostly. I mean, some of them do, I guess – nude statues, for example. Like that one everybody's always going on about, you know, the naked guy with the curly hair?" With an effort, she forced herself to stop babbling. "Anyway. Thanks. For arming me, I mean. Although I'd probably feel kind of bad about killing you now."

He was looking at her intently. "David."

"What?" She frowned, puzzled. "Is that your name?"

He shook his head, his lips forming a furtive half-smile. "The statue. The one you were talking about. Michelangelo's David."

"Oh." She managed to sit up against the headboard, wincing as she did so and keeping a firm grip on Mr. Pointy just in case The Potential Psycho Killer decided to spring a surprise attack. "So, what _is _your name? And ... I know the Bluebird is in downtown Sunnydale, so obviously I haven't gone far, but how the hell did I get here?"

There was something vaguely guilty in the way he avoided her gaze. "I brought you here. After you staked that vampire in the alley. You had … collapsed."

She nodded. "Passing out in real life is a lot less cool than it looks on TV, although that probably has a lot to do with the lack of cushioning available on a paved street."

He didn't respond and she took a moment to get a better mental inventory of him. He was still sitting down, but she could see that he was tall, with a figure that was broad-chested and lean at the same time. _So, he likes to weight-lift but isn't big on eating? How does that work? _ "You didn't answer my first question. What's your name?"

The half-smile came back, lingering like a passing sunbeam on the pale landscape of his face. "Does it matter?"

"It does if I owe you my life. Or even if you just saved me a trip to the ER, which earns you just as many hero points in my book."

He nodded as though to say that this made perfect sense. And it did, oddly enough. "Angel."

"That's your name?" She looked intently at his face, his eyes, as though trying to read the name in his features. "It's sweet. And kind of unusual for a guy. How'd you get it?"

"It's … sort of a nickname," he explained cautiously. _She doesn't need to hear the whole story. _He was momentarily worried that she'd put two and two together and mistake him for Angelus, but that didn't seem to be happening.

She had found her backpack on the floor near the bed and was busy checking that all her stuff was still there. "So, listen," she said without looking up at him, "I'm feeling the _definition_ of 'fine' after that long comfy sleep, so if you could just point me to the nearest highway I'll be moving along now." She slipped out of the bed and stood up, wincing only slightly as she did so.

His expression became a mixture of graveness and uncertainty. "It's dangerous out there. Especially after dark."

She laughed. "Yeah, thanks for the warning, but I kinda already had that figured. Vampire Slayer, remember? I'm part of the reason for all that after-dark dangerousness."

"And isn't the Slayer supposed to stay on the Hellmouth?"

She tilted her head. "The what?"

"Your Watcher didn't tell you?"

Her features hardened. "My Watcher is dead."

"Then he's going to be replaced. You probably just haven't met his successor yet."

She was shaking her head even before he'd finished the sentence. "I'm not getting another Watcher. I don't _want _another Watcher. And I'm sure as hell not staying in this little dot-on-the-map of a town – I don't care _what _it's the mouth of." She glared at him. "Okay?"

He caught himself admiring the anger-induced flush that had crept over her cheeks as she spoke. _Snap out of it. _He couldn't let her go out on her own, this fledgling Slayer who didn't even know enough to know about the Hellmouth. But he couldn't force her to stay, either. Fledgling or not, it probably wouldn't be too difficult for her to fight him if he tried to keep her from leaving."Okay. But I'm coming with you."

"You're what?" She stared at him, faintly shocked. "What do you think this is, some sort of camping trip?"

He shrugged. "I think that depends on where you're going, and I'm assuming that you weren't just planning on wandering around the country."

She looked away. _I can tell him. Worst comes to worst, I've definitely recovered enough to take him on. _She had never killed a human being before, and she didn't want to start now, but she had no scruples whatsoever about punching them into unconsciousness. "I need to find someone who can get me out of this Slayer thing."

"If you're saying what I think you're saying, then there's no such person."

"How would you know? You ever tried to find a de-Slayer-er?"

"I … look, Buffy, I know it's difficult sometimes to face your destiny, but –"

"I never told you my name." She shifted her backpack so that her arm could move more freely and balled her hands into fists, having already put Mr. Pointy in her back pocket.

Angel lifted his own hands in a gesture of innocence. "It's on your backpack."

She relaxed. _Apparently, he reads the labels on other people's stuff, but doesn't actually take any of it. Is _anything_ about this guy normal? _"Listen. I've had the whole 'it's your destiny' talk. Many, many times. And I'm way beyond sick of it. If there's any way at all that someone else can take over this Slayer gig without me going six feet under, I'm going to find it."

"All right. In the end, it's your decision." He got up, unlocked the door and started to walk down the hallway.

She slipped on her now nearly-dry boots before running to catch up with him. "Wait. Where are you going?"

He turned to look down into her eyes. "Like I said – I'm coming with you."

She thought about this for a moment. "Fine. But I reserve the right to beat you to a pulp at the first sign of any Ted Bundy-ness."

He tried to smile. _Ted Bundy was human serial killer. I'm a vampire. Not the same thing._ "Deal."

---


	3. The Gem

**Author's Note: **I finished writing this chapter on the 12th, but due to The Great Uploading Malfunction Of '07 I couldn't get it up until now; sorry for the delay. Again, thanks to everyone who reviewed. It definitely helps me keep this fic going. And I should probably warn everyone that Giles is in this chapter … sort of.

**3. The Gem**

It was only about an hour into nightfall when they left the motel, and thankfully the rain had let up although there was still a definite chill in the air. Buffy had originally intended to be leading the way to … wherever they were going, but on second thoughts falling into step behind Angel seemed like a much better plan. At the very least, he seemed to have some kind of destination in mind, while all she wanted was to get out the hell of Sunnydale and then take it from there. Unfortunately, Angel's plan didn't exactly seem to coincide with hers, which she only realized after they entered a familiar-looking store-lined street. "Isn't this Lombardo Street?"

Angel turned his head briefly to look at her, but didn't stop walking. "I don't know. Maybe. Why?"

"Because Lombardo Street is uptown. So all we've done so far is move from one end of Sunnydale to the other."

He turned back again to see that she had come to a complete stop and was glaring at him. "If we had gone in the opposite direction, we'd be out of here by now," she pointed out angrily.

He sighed. "There's someone we need to see first."

---

They found the front door unlocked. It led into a spacious but extremely dingy living room; the effect of decently good-quality furniture was counteracted by the pungent incense-like smoke that filled the room and the general disarray of everything in it, including the several empty beer bottles that were taking up space beneath the coffee table.

Buffy's nose wrinkled almost instinctively. "Someone actually _lives _here?"

Angel cast her a glance that could almost have been called irritated. "We're here to ask for help. Insults won't make this any easier."

"Right," Buffy retorted, "because I'm sure no one's ever pointed out that this place is a pig sty before and it would come as_ big_ shock to Mr. or Mrs. I Can't Be Bothered To Crack Open A Window. Seriously," she demanded, rounding on him, "doesn't the smell bother you?"

Angel looked up from a close examination of a suspicious murky red stain on the couch. _No. Because I don't breathe. _"Of course it does. I just don't feel any need to whine about it."

"What? I am not _whining. _I'm just saying that – Oh my God, is that blood?" Her eyes had followed Angel's line of vision and she was grimacing at the stain. "It's blood, isn't it? Great. It would make sense that I'd follow a complete stranger to a strange place and end up in the clutches of his cult friends, probably as a contender for the next ritual virgin sacrifice or whatever."

She saw that the furtive not-quite-there smile had reappeared on his face and demanded to know what he found so funny. "Ritual _virgin _sacrifice," he repeated, careful to be standing at least an arm's length away.

A deep flush overspread her cheeks almost immediately. _Damn._ "Well, they wouldn't _know _that I'm not a virgin. Because I'm not. I've had lots of … you know what, not that it's any of your business. And hello, _I'm_ not the one with virgin-sacrificing friends!"

Angel wet the tip of his finger, rubbed it against the stain and then cautiously tasted it. "It's not blood. It's wine."

Buffy couldn't decide if she was more shocked or disgusted. "I can't _believe _you just did that. Or actually, yes I can. It would be perfectly in keeping with your dark-and-broody loner persona. Next thing I know you'll tell me you can track people by their scent or something equally _The Last Mohican_."

He shrugged. "I don't make a habit of it, but yes."

She stared at him in complete disbelief. "People have _dogs _for that kind of thing, Angel."

Before he could respond they heard the sound of the front door, which they had left open, slamming shut. They turned to see a man leaning back against it, eyes fixed on them in a none-too-friendly manner. He was in his forties, with messy graying hair and an outfit that consisted of black denim jeans and a leather jacket over the kind of open-chested shirt that older men usually steered clear of. _God, if my dad ever dressed like that I'd disown myself, _Buffy thought.

The man gestured with the suspiciously whisky-bottle-shaped brown paper bag he was holding. "Angel."

Angel gave the man the briefest of nods. "Ripper."

Buffy rolled her eyes and pointed at herself. "Buffy. Now that the role call's over, can we get on with whatever we're here for?"

The man gave her an interested, lingering glance. "Little bit younger than your usual fare, isn't she?" he asked, in a heavy British accent.

"Excuse me?" Buffy was indignant. "I'm nobody's _fare_, buddy, but you might be if you don't watch your mouth."

The man actually threw his head back and laughed. "Oh yes, this one's a keeper." He turned to Angel. "Mind if I borrow her?"

Angel had to reach out and grab Buffy's arm to keep her from springing to attack. She looked up at him in surprise, but he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. "We need a favor."

"Oh, really?" Ripper moved past them to lie on the couch with his arms crossed comfortably behind his head. "I don't do favors, Angel. You should know that by now. You want something from me, you pay for it."

"Not this time. Because this time, you either give me what I ask for, or I tell your old pal Rayne exactly where to find you."

Ripper eyed him narrowly. "You wouldn't. You're far too _noble_ for that."

"I am." Angel smiled and jerked a thumb at Buffy. "But _she_ isn't."

"Oh yeah," Buffy agreed, deciding to go with the flow, "I'd jump at the chance to give whatshisname a street address _and_ detailed directions if it means getting your ass in trouble."

Ripper smirked, keeping his eyes on Buffy but speaking to Angel. "You haven't told her who I am, have you?"

Angel shrugged, looking vaguely unsettled, and another idea occurred to Ripper. "You haven't told her who _you _are, either."

"That's not your concern," Angel responded flatly.

"Isn't it? I don't know about that, Angel. Perhaps it's my civic _duty_ to ensure that this poor girl doesn't leave with you without having heard at least part of your fascinating little history first."

To Buffy's shock, Angel moved forward with unusual speed and caught Ripper's neck in one hand, leaning over him menacingly. "You breathe _one word _about it and I swear it'll be the last non-pain-filled moment of your miserable life," he threatened, keeping his voice low enough to escape Buffy's hearing.

"Agreed," Ripper said, his voice coming out in a choked whisper. "But secrets have a way of telling themselves, my friend."

Angel released his grip on Ripper's neck and stepped back. "I'm not your _friend_."

Ripper nodded, smiling secretively. "Of course not. And now, let's get on with business, shall we?"

"All right. I need the Gem of Amarra." Angel said it as matter-of-factly as though he were asking for a spoonful of sugar.

There was a lengthy silence before Ripper let out a sigh. "You know I don't have it."

"I know you want everyone to _believe_ you don't have it." Angel crossed his arms and waited for a more honest answer.

Ripper sighed again and cast Buffy a dismayed smile. "Just doesn't give up, does he?" He raised his hand and a deep purple ball of light formed in the air above his palm. It solidified into an amulet on a heavy chain, which dropped lightly into his grasp.

Ripper scrutinized it casually before grinning at Buffy's amazed expression. "I've got some of the world's wealthiest vampires bidding the shirts off their backs for this thing, and he wants it for free."

"Either you give me the Gem, or Rayne comes knocking on your door. It's your choice." _Don't show him how much you want it. Be calm. _Angel had never had enough leverage to ask for the Gem before, but he had known for quite a while that it was probably in Ripper's possession. Now that he was so close to having it, he could actually feel himself trembling.

"You're … you're a man-witch. Or whatever. I mean, vampires and demons I can deal with, but I thought witches were just a bunch of weirdos in pointy hats holding weekly meetings somewhere in Scotland." She turned to Angel. "I think I would've preferred the group of virgin sacrificers."

"The group of what?" Ripper raised his eyebrows in evident amusement. "Exactly what have you been telling this girl, Angel? I'm not saying I'm beyond a sacrifice when times require it, but honestly – virgins were passé long before I even got started in the dark arts. And I prefer the term warlock," he added to Buffy, "because political correctness aside, it sounds a lot less faggoty than 'male witch'."

"What about 'magician'?" Buffy asked, with genuine curiosity.

"Come on, darling. Do I look like the kind of man who spends his weekends pulling furry animals out of hats at kiddie birthday parties?"

Buffy tipped her head thoughtfully. "'Wizard'?"

Ripper snorted scornfully. "Please – those tossers wouldn't know a proper incantation if it waved its knickers in their faces."

Angel wouldn't let the conversation get sidetracked. "The Gem, Ripper. Give it to me."

Ripper shrugged and lifted his palm until it was level with his mouth. He blew gently at the amulet and it floated lazily through the air until it reached Angel's outstretched hand. "There. Can a man have some peace now?"

"One more thing. Are there any Watchers still operating in the US?"

Ripper scowled. "Bound to be. They're like bloody cockroaches, aren't they? Get in everywhere."

"I need a name."

"There's one in Los Angeles." Ripper pulled a pen and a sheet of white paper apparently out of the thin air in front of him and wrote something down before handing the paper to Angel. "Name, telephone number and address. Can't do much better than that, can I?"

Angel nodded. He slipped the paper into the pocket of his black leather duster, along with the Gem, and moved towards the front door. Buffy actually turned to wave at Ripper as they left, and he winked at her in return, mouthing the words 'call me'.

"Weird as this is going to sound, I actually kind of liked him," she said to Angel as they finally headed for the nearest route out of Sunnydale.

"Everyone does. At first. Until he does something like, say, getting rid of their souls. After that he doesn't seem quite as cuddly anymore."

In response to Buffy's extremely confused "Huh?", he shook his head and smiled. "Never mind. Important thing is, we've got the Gem."

"And it's going to help us find a de-Slayer-er _how_?"

_Uh-oh. _"It's … a tracking device. It'll keep us going in the right direction." _Liar. How long before she figures it out? _

"Oh. And here I was, thinking we could just go by your amazing sense of smell." She smiled up at him and Angel realized that even in the dark, her eyes were a gorgeous pale green. He hadn't noticed their color before.

Buffy was surprised by how long his gaze lingered on her face. "What?" she asked self-consciously. "Is there something on my nose?"

_Say it. Tell her she's beautiful. _But he couldn't – and didn't – say it.

Instead, he shook his head silently in response to her question and spent the next half an hour mentally kicking himself for being such a coward.

---

**Author's Note (April 17th):** REALbluelightsaber's review brought my attention to the heinous mistake I'd made in the line "restoring their souls". It should've been "getting rid of" - I've fixed that now, but I should've noticed it earlier.


	4. The Watcher

**Author's Note: **I'm repeating myself here, but thanks to all the reviewers. I'm glad that my attempts at written humour aren't completely off the mark :-P although there's not much of it in this chapter.

**4. The Watcher**

They managed to board an early train to Los Angeles, so that they were two of relatively few passengers and had a compartment to themselves. About half an hour into the journey, faint sunlight began to seep into the train as the sun slowly pulled itself above the horizon. Angel and Buffy both had window seats, having opted sit across from rather than next to each other, and since the train was passing through a fairly uninhabited stretch of landscape they had a good view of the sunrise.

Angel stared at the piercingly bright slice of the sun's disc, rising against a backdrop of more muted syrup-orange light, in pure fascination. He raised his hand almost without thinking and pressed it against the window pane, watching the light play over his skin. He was amazed by how different the reality of sunlight was to his vague memories of it; it was so much more beautiful and immediate than he had ever imagined it to be. _And it can't burn me. _With the amulet around his neck, tucked beneath his shirt, he was safe. He would've laughed out loud if he hadn't been experiencing feelings far too painful to allow for laughter.

Buffy couldn't escape noticing his silence and the intensity in his eyes as he stared unblinkingly at the rising sun, but she realized that he probably wasn't in the mood for conversation. _Not that he ever is. There are monks in Tibet with better social skills. _

But she knew that she was lucky to have any kind of company on her journey – and especially the kind of company that was capable of intimidating fairly powerful warlocks – so she kept her complaints to herself.

_---_

The office building was one of those sleek glass-and-steel creations that made up most of LA's newest (and currently trendiest) business district. But whereas most of the office buildings had the names of firms or companies printed in large gothic letters over their entrances, this building only sported a street number.

Buffy and Angel stood in front of the entrance, looking up at the impressive building uncertainly. Reflective glass prevented them from looking in, but as far as they could tell the place was open for business.

"Are you sure this is it? Because I've gotta say, there's no _way_ Merrick would've been caught mooching around a place like this. It would've totally ruined his bookish mystique."

"I'm not saying Ripper's the most trustworthy man alive, but I don't think he was lying to us about this." Angel checked the piece of paper covered in the warlock's surprisingly neat handwriting. "Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, office 6B. Shouldn't be too hard to find him." He turned to Buffy. "Ready?"

Buffy hesitated. "What if he knows I'm the Slayer? And even if he doesn't, how can we even ask him about … un-Slayer-ing me without telling him?" She didn't want him to see how nervous she was, but she couldn't keep the worried tone out of her voice. She would rather turn back now than risk being forced back to Sunnydale.

To her surprise, Angel reached out and took her hand in his. The part of her that wasn't busy being shocked noted that his skin was oddly cool and pleasantly soft. "We'll manage. No matter what, you're the Slayer. He's only a Watcher. He can't make you do anything you don't want to." He smiled at her – a fully formed, gentle smile that she hadn't seen on his face before. It made the breath catch in her throat. "Okay?"

Emotion rose unexpectedly and she blinked to keep the tears at bay. _God, I'm such a sissy. All it takes is for one person to be nice to me, and it's Niagara Falls all of a sudden. _But she knew it was more than that. Ever since Merrick's death she had felt completely alone, and now the loneliness was replaced with the heart-warming feeling that someone – even if it was only Angel – was on her side. She wasn't alone anymore.

She couldn't quite find the strength to pull her hand away from the comfort of his grasp, but she managed to nod. "Okay. Let's go see a Watcher."

---

The receptionist, a slender brunette whose entire outfit exuded fashion-consciousness, only deigned to look up at them after Angel knocked sharply on the surface of her desk with the knuckles of his free hand. He had already said "Excuse me" three or four times, but the girl had (apparently) been too absorbed in her copy of _Vogue _to notice.

The indignant expression on her face instantly transformed into a charming smile as she noticed his height and handsome features. _Hell-o, salty goodness! _"Hi there. Can I help you?"

Angel told her who they were looking for and she nodded brightly. "Mr. Wyndham-Pryce should be free to see you now – he's just finished with a meeting. I'll give him a buzz and let him know that you're coming in."

Her hand paused over the intercom button and she giggled. "Whoops." She looked up at Angel and smiled broadly. "I almost forgot to ask for your name."

"Angel," he told her, not bothering to return her megawatt smile.

"_Aangel_," she repeated, drawing out the syllables. "That's a _gorgeous _name. Mine's Cordelia." She actually extended her hand over the desk, and Angel was forced to let go of Buffy's in order to shake it.

So far Buffy had been trying to quell her annoyance at being ignored, but the way Cordelia's fingers were almost stroking Angel's as they shook hands was the final straw. "We're kind of in a hurry, so it would be great if you could get around to the 'buzzing' now," she said impatiently.

Cordelia raised her eyebrows and gave Angel an amused look that clearly said _My, isn't she huffy today?_ She didn't bother asking for Buffy's name and instead told Mr. Wyndham-Pryce that "a man named Angel and some girl" were there to see him.

Since she was speaking into a receiver Buffy and Angel couldn't hear the reply, but she nodded at them and pointed in the direction of office 6B. "You can just go right in."

The office door was open and led into a room with full bookshelves covering most of the walls. A man stood behind a desk covered with teetering piles of folders and loose pages, leaning over an unusually large book. He was younger than Buffy had expected him to be, but there was still an unmistakable aura of authority surrounding him, despite the rolled-up shirtsleeves and six o'clock shadow covering the lower part of his face. He looked up at them with evident interest. "Yes?"

Angel paused for a second to recollect his story. "My name's Angel, and this is my assistant … Bianca. We've been researching Slayer lore and were wondering if you could answer some questions for us. We heard you were the man to come to," he added. _You catch more flies with honey, after all._

The Watcher laughed. "That's very flattering, although I'm not sure it's true. After all, I'm only a scholar of sorts myself." He gestured at the empty chairs positioned in front of the desk. "Please, take a seat."

They sat down and the Watcher picked up the intercom receiver to ask Cordelia to bring in some coffee. It was only then that Buffy realized that she hadn't had anything to eat or drink since they got off the train, so she was exceedingly thankful for the man's sense of hospitality.

As soon as Cordelia brought in the coffee – with a smile for the two men and a cold half-glance at Buffy – Buffy gulped down nearly half of hers, although she tried to do it as slowly and non-embarrassingly as possible.

"So, how did the two of you get involved in such an obscure subject? It's not every day someone walks into my office asking about Slayer lore," he added apologetically, "so you'll have to excuse my nosiness." His accent was less pronounced and far more polished than Ripper's, but somehow he reminded Buffy of the warlock.

It was something about his eyes…

---

For the second time in her life, Buffy Summers awoke in unfamiliar surroundings.

She stared groggily up at a blank ceiling, trying to collect her scattered thoughts. She vaguely remembered sitting across from the Watcher. He had asked a question, and then … _Come on, Summers – what happened next? …_ and then, nothing. Her memory after that point was a blank. She blinked hard in frustration and started to lift her hand in order to rub her eyes, only to realize that she couldn't move her arm.

She looked down in horror to see that thick leather restraints had been strapped around her torso, riveting her arms to the sides of her body, and around her ankles. She cried out involuntarily and struggled against the restraints, her panic growing with every passing second.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally exhausted herself and lay still. _"Slayer strength" – yeah right! Hell of a lot of good it's doing me now. _

She breathed deeply and tried to stay calm. _Okay, what've we got? Smallish room, blank white walls, no windows, one bed and a bunch of straps. So … I'm either in a mental hospital, or a really bad horror movie._

Both of those options seemed highly unlikely, considering her last memory was of visiting a Watcher's office with Angel – _Angel! Where is he? He couldn't have known about this. No way would he let anyone pull a _Gothika _on me. _

For a moment she doubted the truth of this thought – after all, he was still basically a stranger – but then she remembered the gentleness in his tone and look when he had spoken to her outside the office building. _No one's that good an actor. He definitely wasn't planning anything sinister. _

She took another deep breath to steady her nerves. _All right. Goal number one is to get the hell out of here. Number two is to find Angel._ She began to feel the gradual surge of power as she gathered her strength for another attempt at freeing herself, and she grit her teeth in grim determination.

_Number three is revenge._

---

"She's safe?"

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce smiled sardonically. "She's being restrained, if that's what you mean."

"You know it's not. I mean, is _she _safe? From … that _thing_ …"

"The vampire is in an underground holding cell," the Watcher explained nonchalantly. "When we've finished studying him, he'll be destroyed." He lifted his wine glass to watch the way the light played on the surface of the burgundy liquid. "There's no need to worry that he'll ever be able to harm your daughter again."

"Good." Hank Summers exhaled in relief and picked up his own glass. "So, she'll be treated here?"

The Watcher inclined his head briefly in assent. "She'll need to be re-trained, of course. I find her last Watcher was rather lax on the disciplinary aspects of her Slayer training." He smiled grimly. "That will need to be rectified."

"Will she … I mean, can she come home? After you've finished training her?" Hank Summers's brain was still spinning from the knowledge that his daughter was not insane, and that everything she had told him a few months ago about Slayers and vampires was true. But he was at heart a practical man, and knew when to accept the facts he was presented with. Now all he hoped was that Buffy would be well taken care of.

"She'll return to the Hellmouth, of course." Wesley shut the book lying on the desk in front of him. The single word 'Vampyre' was engraved in large silver lettering across the black cover.

The Watcher traced the title thoughtfully with his fingers. "It's where she needs to be."

---


	5. The Traitor

**Author's Note:** I really, _really_ appreciate all the feedback, but I feel like I have to point out that the first two letters of this fic's summary are "AU". I'm sorry to disappoint the Wesley fans, but he's not about to get any nicer. I'm basing his character on the way I could see him developing if he was given too much power within the Watchers' Council and had a lot more experience than he did when he first appeared on BtVS.

**5. The Traitor**

The walls were a uniform, depressing dark gray. The floor was an equally depressing darker shade of gray. The ceiling sported several long cracks and a damp patch which, if Angel turned his head the right way, strongly resembled Frank Sinatra. There were no windows, no bars that he could look through – only a single heavy door with no apparent doorknob or handle to turn, at least not from the inside. It did however have something like a mail-slot set at the bottom, through which he had already been passed a plastic bag full of what he hoped was animal blood. In any case, it didn't taste good enough to be human.

Drinking it had revived him, but now he no longer had the luxury of fatigue. After being thrown into the cell he had spent hours in a drowsy state somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, barely aware of his surroundings. As he became more alert the memories had come flooding back, and with them came the painful knowledge that he had failed to protect the only living being he cared at all about.

---

Seconds after lifting her cup of coffee to her mouth, Buffy had slumped sideways in her chair with her eyes shut, her body becoming completely limp. Angel had called her name in alarm before realizing that the Watcher had not reacted at all. It barely took a second for him to put two and two together, but by the time he had moved to Buffy's side and bent to pick her up, the Watcher was already calmly pointing a crossbow at him.

"Believe me, I wouldn't need much of a reason," he had told Angel, taking careful aim at his heart. "Seeing you lay a single finger on her would be enough."

Angel had barely registered his own transformation as instinct took over and his face became vampiric, but the Watcher had the upper hand, so he was forced to restrain himself. Slowly his features morphed again, becoming regular and human. "You don't know what you're doing."

"Oh, I know exactly what I'm doing." The Watcher had risen slowly from his chair, making sure to keep the crossbow aimed directly at Angel's chest. "I'm well aware that you've persuaded the Slayer to abandon her duties, most probably as part of a deal you've cut with your own kind. She has become convinced that her destiny as the Chosen One can be ignored, put aside as though it were of no importance."

His grip on the crossbow tightened. "Unfortunately for you, your plan was bound to fail. As long as Buffy Summers lives and breathes, she will hunt creatures like yourself. It's in more than just her blood – it's in her entire being. She couldn't stop even if she wanted to."

"She _does _want to." Angel couldn't keep himself from snarling at the Watcher, even without his vampire face on. "Just ask her. She'd rather die than live the kind of life you've got mapped out for her."

Wesley had turned his eyes momentarily to the unconscious sixteen-year-old. "Yes, I can easily believe that you wouldn't have much trouble getting an impressionable young woman to think along those lines. After all," he continued coldly, "your famous powers of persuasion have been documented for over two hundred years, Angelus."

Angel had been temporarily silenced. _He knows. _"It's just Angel now," he said slowly. "Angelus was … a different person."

"I think we both know he wasn't a _person _at all," Wesley had hissed. "And your _alleged_ soul may have been enough to prevent me from killing you the moment you stepped into my sight, but it won't save you in the end. After I've learned what I can from observing you and reported back to the Council, you will be eliminated."

And then he had fired the crossbow, sending an arrow straight into Angel's heart.

It had been made of metal, with a point covered in a powerful sedative, as Angel had later learned; and so it hadn't killed him. But as he paced ceaselessly around the tiny cell, with the image of Buffy's smile taking centre-stage in his mind, he almost wished that it had.

---

As she rubbed her wrists to allay the stinging pain following her latest – and luckily successful – attempt to free herself from the straps, Buffy took careful stock of her surroundings. There was no obvious way to open the door from the inside, but she wasn't about to let that stop her. She moved until she was standing inches away from its smooth surface and scrutinized it closely, looking for some sort of weak point, even if it was only the barest hairline crack.

She couldn't find anything. The door was apparently in perfect condition. _Fine. Then I'll just have to bring on some serious Hulk-style body-slamming. _She backed up slowly, taking measure of how much space she'd need to build up a decent momentum._ Anyone standing on the other side of that door had better be wearing their lucky briefs today. _

She barely had time to assume her classic about-to-break-down-a-door position before the door slid open on its own. A woman in a navy blue suit-like uniform stood in the doorway, holding a tray of what was apparently meant to be Buffy's dinner. They both stood stock-still for a moment, staring at each other.

Then Buffy looked at the contents of the tray and grimaced. "You were actually going to _feed _me that stuff? God, you people really are evil."

The woman may possibly have thought about turning around and running away, but before this thought was even fully formulated Buffy's fist had already impacted on her skull. Five minutes later, any keys that might have been the woman's when she stepped into the room were Buffy's.

She might have ended up unknowingly donating her uniform to the Slayer as well, except that Buffy wouldn't have had anywhere to put her own clothes, since her backpack had apparently been confiscated. _And quite frankly, the possibility of being seen in public wearing that sad prison-standard outfit is just a whole lot of scary. _

When she stepped outside into the hallway, all of her senses were on high alert – so she was extremely surprised to find that it was empty. She was also very disappointed. It would have been nice to vent some of her frustration over the events of the past few months on some poor fool who thought taking on the Slayer was part of his standard security guard job description. _There are _always _guards standing outside the door in this kind of scenario. Haven't these people seen Prison Break?_

There was a short staircase at the end of the hallway leading to an upper floor, where yet another hallway – also empty – led into a large, luxuriously furnished conference room. At first, judging by the complete silence that met her when she stepped in, she thought the room was empty.

This turned out to be a mistake. The room was _not _empty, and the silence could be attributed to the fact that everyone inside, except for Buffy, was dead. _And only recently dead, going by the general lack of rotting-corpse stinkiness going on. _She couldn't work up any pity for the people who had presumably had a hand in her imprisonment, but she noted with interest and a rush of adrenaline that all four bodies were curiously pale. _Also, the bite marks on their throats are just the biggest old clue ever._

She managed to break off a wooden chair leg and gripped it firmly as she moved towards the door, unable to keep herself from smiling. _Here be vampires. _

---

It was a stand-off. One on side of the spacious lobby of the office building stood a group of people carrying everything from crossbows and stakes to swords and daggers. They weren't the most attractive bunch in the world – their clothing was definitely adapted to life on the streets and there were a lot of tattoos on display – but they were preferable to the group standing on the opposite side of the room. The vampires, in other words.

Buffy was caught off guard by the scene and stood with her makeshift stake in hand, watching as two men who appeared to be the leaders of their respective groups stepped forward. The leader of the vampires was of medium height, with a lean build and an apparent penchant for black leather, judging by his clothing. _And whoa, did he go overboard with the peroxide on that hair. _In contrast, the leader of the vampires hunters (that's what Buffy assumed they were, anyway) was a tall, athletically built man with dark skin and a shaved head.

"You really think you're any match for us?" The vampire taunted, in a broad Cockney accent. "We'll take your entire little band of demon hunters down, and _then_ go to work on your families."

"Yeah, yeah. We've heard that speech before," the man shot back. "But all I'm seeing right now is a whole lot of us and not a lot of you. Not even you're stupid enough to think you can win a three-to-twelve fight, Spike."

The man had a point. Besides the one called Spike, there were only two female vampires – a brunette and a blonde. Neither of them was carrying any kind of weapon, and they didn't look much like fighters.

"_Four _to twelve, actually." Spike smiled as a fourth person emerged from the shadowy doorway behind him. "Turns out giving the Council a good old shake-up would be a lot more profitable than I'd thought it'd be."

It was only shock that prevented Buffy from crying out. _Angel. Angel's with the vampires. _She felt as though the floor was suddenly swaying beneath her feet. _No. No way. There's just no _way_ he'd join their side. _And then a welcome thought occurred to her._ Maybe he just used them to get out from wherever that Watcher guy put him. Any second now he's gonna turn around and stake them. _

This theory was shattered when Angel growled and his face slowly changed; his eyes became a glowing, feral yellow, his brow ridged and furrowed and his canine teeth elongated into a pair of viciously sharp fangs. _No. No, no, no! Not him. Not Angel._

Buffy watched in horror as he casually put his arm around the blonde female vampire's shoulders and grinned maliciously at the group of humans. "Well, it's been a while since I've seen so many easy pickings in one place," he drawled, in a voice that suddenly carried the lilt of an Irish accent. "Any special requests?"

The dark-haired female vampire cooed sweetly and pointed a finger at a young girl standing behind the leader of the vampire hunters. "Her. I want her. She smells just like strawberries, she does."

"Over my dead body, hag," the dark-skinned man spat, moving to block the girl from view.

The blonde female vampire had been trailing her fingers languidly up and down Angel's arm, but now she looked up and laughed. "Oh, believe me – it will be."

"Hate to spoil your dinner plans, but I don't think so." Having recovered at least a little from her shock, Buffy moved forward swiftly to stand between the vampires and the group of humans. She lifted the broken chair leg she was holding. "See this? As far as anyone in this room is concerned, this is a stake."

She used her free hand to point to herself. "And I'm the only girl on Earth who can currently be looked up in any old dictionary under Slayer, comma _The_. For those of you who happen to be slow learners: that means my job is to turn wannabe bad guys like you into tidy little piles of dust."

She smiled and flipped the chair leg deftly so that the jagged edge was facing the vampires. "So unless you want to ultimately end up inside a vacuum cleaner, I suggest you run."

---


	6. The Hunters

**Author's Note:** This chapter's a little shorter than usual, but I'll probably make up for it in the seventh. As always, reviews are hugely appreciated.

**6. The Hunters**

Silence reigned in the lobby where four vampires, a dozen vampire hunters and one Slayer stared each other down in preparation for an inevitable battle. The crew of self-styled demon hunters which Charles Gunn had founded and was currently the leader of had only received word of Spike's intended raid on the Watchers' Council's LA facility an hour or so before the confrontation in the lobby began. By the time they had arrived, they had found most of the employees in the building dead. All others, including Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, were missing, having most probably fled as soon as they realized what was happening.

Gunn had been prepared to face Drusilla, Darla and Spike, but the fourth dark-haired vampire was new to him (at least by sight) and he was uncertain about how strong that vampire would be in battle. And then there was the issue of the petite teenage girl who was calling herself the Slayer and very skillfully wielding a chair leg as a stake. Unless she was just some nut who'd taught herself martial arts and decided to go posing as the Chosen One during her spare time, Gunn knew that her arrival could be very good news for his crew.

---

Drusilla laughed delightedly and clapped her hands together in an eerily childish gesture of excitement. "Oh, my. A Slayer! It's been ages since we saw one of those, hasn't it, William? So much powerful blood…" she shut her eyes and shuddered in apparent pleasure. "Like starlight, running through her veins."

Buffy raised her eyebrows in disgust. "God, you people are _so _not much with the sanity."

"Don't think you're going to stop us. I've offed two of your kind before," Spike boasted, "and I don't imagine you'll turn out to be stronger than either of them." He looked at her insolently. "At least not with those chicken limbs."

Buffy was indignant. _Chicken limbs? I worked _hard _for these muscles!_ "Oh, like you're one to talk, you Billy Idol wannabe hell-spawn." Buffy raised the stake and glared at him. "Let's do this already."

Spike smirked. "Gladly." He used vampiric speed to move forward, but Buffy was equally fast and her high swivel-kick had already begun by the time he reached her. It caught him in the side of the head, and he was momentarily dazed. Buffy followed up on her advantage with a brutal blow to his face, which elicited a howl and a stream of curses.

"Bitch," Spike spat, covering his bleeding nose with one hand. "You'll pay for that." He lunged forward into what Buffy thought would be an attempt a choke-hold, but instead turned out to be a low-slung punch to her stomach. She doubled over, giving Spike the opportunity to deliver an uppercut to her jaw which sent her flying backwards until she slammed into a nearby wall.

The impact stunned her and seemed to suck all the air out of her lungs. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe, noting at the same time that the other vampires were now fighting the humans, who seemed to be losing steadily. _And of course they would be, since the Slayer is too busy fighting Mr. Radioactive Eighties Hairdo to help them out. I'm such an idiot. This was totally a distraction tactic, and I fell for it. _She caught her breath and steadied herself against the wall. _Okay, no more messing around. _

She managed to stand up without keeling over, and regained her equilibrium just in time to realize that Spike was approaching from her left. She turned swiftly and caught the arm he had stretched out in order to grab her. Before he could react she twisted it for all she was worth, bringing him to his knees, and raised the stake so that it was positioned to enter his heart through his back.

He struggled, but she pressed the stake's jagged edges into his back so that he'd know it was there and increased the pressure on his arm almost to snapping point. She turned her head to where most of the fighting was taking place and shouted to make her voice heard over the din. "Hey, big uglies! I've got your Slayer-killer right here!"

Relative stillness descended on the scene, with the vampires pushing away their human opponents and moving towards her. "Uh-uh," she said warningly, "any closer and your badly-dressed friend over here goes dusty bye."

Angel's cold stare took in the both her and Spike, and then he smiled mockingly. "Who says we care?"

Buffy was shocked by the complete lack of recognition in his eyes. _As though he's never seen me before. What did they _do_ to him?_

"You're not going to bloody well let her kill me – not after all I've done for you," Spike said, his tone faintly pleading, but mostly angry. "Just back off these sods for now. We can get them later." Buffy pushed the stake forward and Spike added hurriedly, "Or not. 'Sides, we got what we came for, and their blood wouldn't be all that good anyway."

"There's not enough fear in their eyes," Drusilla said sadly, apparently agreeing with him. "It's not good if there's no fear."

Angel looked down at Darla, who was standing in front of him with her hands placed possessively on his chest. She hadn't been paying much attention to anything besides him since the fighting ended. "What do you think, Darla? Do we spare the fool and save our appetites for better fare, or get on with the killin' and say goodbye to poor William?"

Darla caressed his shoulders and neck seductively, not bothering to answer the question for a long moment. Then she leaned upwards and placed the barest butterfly kiss on his throat. "My only appetite is for you, Angelus," she said softly. "Whether he lives or dies is of no concern to me."

Buffy desperately wanted to snort or roll her eyes or otherwise express scornful derision, but the heavy weight that had suddenly descended on her lungs and heart made the simple act of breathing a painful difficulty. _She loves him. Not the way a human would, but still. And he… _Self-preservation wouldn't allow her to finish that thought. _He's only acting the way he is because they turned him into a demon, _she told herself instead. _That's all there is to it. _

Angel seemed completely caught up in Darla's gaze, but with an apparent effort he managed to lift his eyes from hers long enough to give Spike a disinterested glance. "All right, Slayer. We'll leave your little friends alone, and William gets to stick around to annoy me for a few more centuries."

As the vampires backed away towards the exit of the building – with every crossbow and stake the vampire hunters had on hand aimed in their direction – Buffy briefly considered tossing her stake into the back of one of them, but the other three would undoubtedly return and she now knew for a fact that the so-called demon hunters wouldn't stand much of a chance against them.

And though it pained her to admit it, she realized that in her current emotional state she probably wouldn't either.

---

"So, you're the Slayer." The look that Charles Gunn gave her as the demon hunters made their way outside to where their transportation was waiting (in the form of a pair of extremely dilapidated vans) was definitely an admiring one, and Buffy allowed herself to momentarily feel proud of her title in a way she hadn't experienced since defeating Lothos.

"Yup. Stake-swinging abilities, super-strength and all. I'm otherwise just known as Buffy," she added. He had already told her his name and introduced most of the crew members, including a slender Southern girl named Fred. She was the one Drusilla had singled out earlier, and Buffy was amazed to realize that she did indeed smell faintly like strawberries.

"It's the shower gel I used this mornin'," Fred explained, clearly embarrassed. "I always buy the strawberry-scented. It's just so much better than the regular ol' soapy kind."

"Definitely," Buffy agreed cheerfully. "I'm a major fan of all things fruity." She realized how this sounded and added, "As in 'made from fruit', not as in 'crazy'."

Fred laughed. "Aw, I don't know. I think I'm probably a fan of both. Being crazy means you get to ignore a lotta things that would usually bug the heck outta you."

Buffy's curiosity was peaked – it sounded as though Fred was speaking from personal experience, but she couldn't see any signs of madness in the girl's behavior, or in her open, sweet-natured manner. "Like what?"

"Like reality," Fred said matter-of-factly. Her smile was genuine, but there was a hint of sadness in it.

"Sounds like something I could use," Buffy responded, only half-joking. "Got any you could sell me?"

"I'll give it to you for free," Fred said generously. "After all, you _did _save our lives back there."

"We could've handled it," Gunn grumbled, lifting the last few weapons into one of the vans. All the demon hunters – both the able and the wounded – were already seated and ready to go.

"Oh, hush," Fred admonished him gently. "They were stronger than we expected and you know it."

Gunn signaled to the driver of the first van, who set off along the road and was soon out of sight among the heavy night-time traffic. He turned to help Fred into the van and was about to slip into the driver's seat when he noticed the expression on Buffy's face.

Gunn wasn't the most intuitive of men, but something told him that a Slayer with a home to return to at night would not be wearing that particular expression. "Hey – if you haven't got a place to stay, you can always head back with us and crash at headquarters. It's not exactly five-star living, but it's better than the streets."

Buffy hesitated, thought briefly of her father's luxurious five-bedroom villa, and nodded gratefully. "That would be great. Thank you."

---

Gunn had been right about the condition of the building that served as the demon hunters' headquarters, but everything inside was carefully arranged and fairly clean.

"Like I said, it's not the Ritz or anything," Gunn said, watching for her reaction. "We're not big on domesticity around here."

Buffy smiled at him, and with the memory of a certain warlock's apartment still vivid in her mind was able to honestly say: "Trust me, I've seen _much _worse. And besides, beggars can't be … pickers, or however that saying's supposed to end."

Several rooms in the building had been set aside as 'sleeping quarters', with sturdy-looking metal frame bunk beds set up along the walls like large shelves. Fred shyly pointed out that the bunk below hers was free, and Buffy was glad to accept it, if only to see the happy smile that lit Fred's features. _Doesn't exactly strike me as a social butterfly, so I'm guessing she could use a friend. _

It soon became clear that her assessment of Fred was fairly accurate; although her sunny temperament and innate sweetness guaranteed that the other crew members were extremely fond of her, her shyness prevented her from making any close friends. _The fact that they're all men might also have something to do with it. Heart-to-heart chats with guys who spent most of their time drafting battle strategies and polishing weapons can't be easy to do._

Most of the unwounded demon hunters set out to patrol for vampires almost as soon as they arrived; Gunn explained that they did most of their work at night, taking time during the day to rest and regroup in between missions involving 'daywalkers' (demons who were unaffected by sunlight) and 'object retrieval' (which could mean anything from picking up driftwood that they could sharpen into stakes to stealing a book of dark magicks from a necromancer and destroying it).

Buffy offered to go out with them, but she was firmly refused and told to rest. "It's only a minor mission. We can handle it," a young demon hunter with a nasty scar across his cheek told her proudly. She tried to explain that Slayer healing abilities meant she had completely recovered from her battle with Spike, but she couldn't convince them and at last agreed to stay in the building for the night.

She promised herself to set out to do some hunting of her own as soon as the sun set the next day. _Spike and his creepy girlfriends are going to pay for turning Angel into a monster, if it's the last thing I do._

---


	7. The Truth

**Author's Note:** I could've done some serious Kafka-esque delayed gratification with this chapter and ignored the "What happened to Angel?" question, but I'm not cruel enough, so this one's mostly Angel's POV. As usual, reviews are welcome.

**7. The Truth**

He wished he hadn't seen it. Or at least, he wished that he couldn't _remember_ seeing it. But there was no escaping the mental image of that tortured facial expression, and it haunted him the way any memory of his past sins haunted him.

The difference was that, unlike other cases in which he'd harmed people, he had not caused Buffy Summers any physical pain and had not set out to hurt her – on the contrary, he had done what he did in order to protect her. And yet, her expression had been the same one he'd seen on many of his past victims.

Angel knew Spike, Darla and Drusilla almost as well as he knew himself, and there were two things that he was absolutely sure of. First: if he hadn't convinced them when they found him in his cell that he had lost his soul and become Angelus, they would have locked the door and left him for dead. They might not have been willing to kill him, but they wouldn't have bothered saving him either.

And second: if he had given any indication whatsoever that he had previously met Buffy, they would have expected him to at least attempt to kill her right there on the spot. His feigned indifference had set the tone for Darla and Drusilla's equally disinterested attitude regarding the Slayer and ensured that Spike was the one who was expected to attack her.

But no matter how well-founded and logical his reasons for posing as Angelus were, they couldn't allay the guilt that gnawed at him every time the memory of her expression returned. The one she had worn when he looked at her and failed to show any signs of recognition had been bad enough, with her eyes going wide with shock. But it was nothing compared to how she'd looked at him while Darla was doing her little display of affection (which he knew had been purely an act of marking her territory, rather than anything to do with love).

The hurt, the confusion, the futile attempt to hide it behind a mask of stoicism had all been too much for him and he had focused completely on Darla in order to avoid seeing the pain temporarily etched on her young features. _I'm sorry._ He wanted to make it up to her. He _would _make it up to her. But he wasn't sure if anything he could do would enable her to ever really trust him again – or forgive him.

---

"So, where to?" Spike spread his arms expansively, as though trying to include all of Los Angeles in his reach. "Not sure we'd be able to find any nuns in this place," he turned to smirk at Angel, "but we can probably snag a few virgins if we look hard enough for 'em. What do you say?"

"I want to hear them sing before they die," Drusilla said dreamily. "See how high their voices go before they snap like twigs."

Darla laughed indulgently and nestled underneath the arm Angel had thrown around her shoulders. "Yes. It's not as though anyone would hear them anyway, in a city so laced with despair. It reminds me so much of Paris before the revolution. Remember, darling boy?"

Angel forced himself to smile the way Angelus would – a cruel, mirthless smile so unlike his own fleeting-yet-sincere one. "Of course. You were going through that phase where you had a thing for guards."

"Oh, yes. And you were insanely jealous. You waited until I'd drained the last one to punish me." She looked up at him and lowered her voice to a husky undertone. "It took you, oh, two or three days at least."

The reaction Angel experienced to her advances wasn't it they used to be, although they it was still strong enough to unsettle him. In the past, he and Darla had belonged to each other, totally and unquestionably, and giving each other pleasure had been what they did both did best. But now he found the idea of making love to her – if that term could even be applied to what they did – distasteful and somehow beneath him.

"Good times," he replied vaguely. "We should do that again soon."

The silence that greeted this statement made him look around sharply, and he realized that all three of his vampire companions were giving him the same odd look. He was about to ask what they were staring at, but then he realized: he had spoken in an American accent.

And just like that, the mask of Angelus slipped from his face and they saw him for what he truly was.

"It's the monster," Drusilla hissed. "The Angel-beast. He was pretending to be Daddy."

"I've got to say, you did a brilliant job there. Had me fooled." Spike looked across casually at Darla. "It's got to be worse for you, though. Not being able to spot your old lover from his alter ego an' all. Wouldn't surprise me if you wanted to kill him."

Darla's initial expression of horror had settled into one of scornful disdain. "No," she said, in a tone loaded with disgust. "Death would be mercy to a _thing_ like him. Living with that dirty little soul will be punishment enough for his deception."

It was a calmer version of her reaction to his newly acquired soul in 1898, but back then Angel had thought that he needed her, and her abandonment had hurt him. This time, he knew that if there was anyone he needed, it wasn't her. He didn't feel much of anything as she spoke, except perhaps relief that he would not have to fight her. He wasn't quite detached enough for that, not yet.

Angel didn't bother trying to speak to them. He only stood there for a moment, absorbing Drusilla's abhorrent glare, Spike's gleeful hate-riddled smirk and Darla's coldly dismissive look. Then he turned and walked away.

---

It wasn't that she minded the company. She didn't. She would much rather be out doing the whole hunting-vampires-by-night thing with someone else than by herself, if she was perfectly honest. But she was on a mission, and other people just didn't fit in to that particular mission.

She had tried to explain all this to Fred as firmly as possible when the girl had asked to join her as she was leaving headquarters that night. Eventually Buffy had managed to dissuade her from the plan and slipped away on her own before Gunn or any of the others got the chance to try to stop her.

She wasn't sure of where she was headed. She just knew that she needed to find Angel, even if it was only to see him one last time before doing … what she would have to do, if he really was evil. She was no longer holding out any hope that he had been pretending, but maybe there would be a way to save him once she found him. _I've never heard of un-vampire-izing anyone – but then again, here I am, running around trying to get de-Slayered, so maybe anything is possible. _

After about an hour of making her way along various streets and alleys – some heavily crowded, some eerily silent and empty – she became aware that she'd been hearing the same sound for quite a while. It was the faint and yet utterly distinctive sound of footsteps. And they weren't hers.

She knew better than to turn around instantly and instead slipped into a convenient narrow side-street. The owner of the footsteps followed at a safe distance. Buffy carefully slipped her stake out of her pocket and felt for the reassuring weight of the sheathed dagger attached to her belt ("Dramatic, but definitely useful," Gunn had told her when he'd handed it to her out of the crew's extensive weapon collection).

She started running and heard with satisfaction that the footsteps sped up to match her pace. She put on a burst of speed, sprinted for a few seconds and then came to a complete and sudden halt. She felt someone's body collide with her back and she reached behind her to grasp their arm, using their own momentum to throw them onto the ground in front of her.

---

An extremely winded Englishman glared at up at her from his undignified position on the pavement. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Actually, that's _my _line." Buffy returned Ripper's glare with equal force. "Stalking is illegal in all fifty states, not to mention a really sad thing to try to pull on someone like me. Hello, Slayer senses?"

"Oh." Ripper picked himself up and dusted off his denim jeans. "Right. Didn't mention that when you came to visit though, did you? Had to find out from that pompous arse of a Watcher."

"You talked to Wesley?" Buffy raised her eyebrows in disbelief. Ripper didn't look any less disreputable than he had in Sunnydale, and she couldn't imagine him having a civilized conversation with the uptight (and probably evil) Watcher, of all people.

"He called me a few hours ago. Said he was missing a Slayer." Ripper eyed her in faint amusement. "Didn't believe him when he said it was you."

"'_Missing_ a Slayer'? In case you hadn't noticed, I don't have 'Property of the Watchers' Council' stamped on my behind. So don't get any ideas about trying to force me back there," she told him angrily, "or I _will _get with the pain-causing."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," he assured her, grinning. _Fiery little thing, this one. _"I'm only here to pick up my Gem."

"That thing you gave Angel?"

"It's with that git Wesley now. Says he'll return it to me if I help him catch you." He saw the way her fists clenched and smiled. "No worries, darling – I've got a fire spell and a broadsword that says he'll return it to me whether he wants to or not. I've never really gone in for kidnapping."

Buffy's fists unclenched gradually, but the look she gave him was still suspicious. "So if you weren't trying to bring me in for the Council, why were you following me?"

He shrugged. "Thought maybe I could convince you to go back – it'd make picking up my Gem a lot easier. But I'm not about to try and force you. I'm not stupid enough, for one." He smiled again and Buffy relaxed a little.

"So, what do you want with a tracking device anyways?" she asked, curiously.

Ripper raised an eyebrow. "A what?"

"You know," Buffy prompted. "For finding a de-Slay–" she stopped when she saw the genuinely confused expression on his face. _He doesn't know what I'm talking about._

"Maybe you've got it mixed up with something else, darling. The Gem of Amarra doesn't _track _anything. It renders any vampire who wears it practically invincible. Protects 'em from staking, decapitation, fire – even sunlight. That's why it's so valuable."

Buffy's face had paled. "What? No. No, he said… And he wasn't a…" _All along? He was a vampire all _along_? And I thought he wanted to help me, I really thought he … _she was ashamed to admit it to herself, but she forced herself to finish the thought: _I really thought he cared about me._

Ripper was looking at her very carefully. "Ah," he said softly. "So your boyfriend decided to keep up his little pretence, did he?"

"He wasn't my _boyfriend_," she spat. "And if you knew he was pretending to be human, you didn't exactly go out of your way to let me in on the secret."

Ripper shrugged. "Wasn't my problem," he said honestly. "I did actually think about telling you, but Angel – or Angelus, as the case may be – has a great talent for making threats."

Buffy was shocked. "He threatened you?" _Of course he did. Hello, vampire? Evil creature of the night? When am I going to get the picture?_

The warlock had to work hard at controlling his facial muscles to stop a grin from happening. This was turning out to be far too easy.

"He's in the habit of it, I'm afraid. Not that I'd mind," he added casually, "except he tends to make good on them."

Buffy mentally rewound the last few minutes' conversation, trying to absorb it all, when something struck her. "What was that name you called him? Angelus?"

This time, the warlock was unable to keep himself from grinning. "I was wondering when you'd ask about that."

And so he told her. He told her everything, very honestly, very accurately and in great detail – up until the part where Angel's soul was restored. Ripper conveniently decided to skip that part of the story, making it sound as though the gypsy clan had merely tried to kill him instead, and been slaughtered in the attempt.

By the time he had finished talking, Buffy had let go of any ideas about saving Angel. She was done with him.

As far as she was concerned, he was just another vampire taking up space where a pile of dust should be.

---


	8. The Fire

**Author's Note:** I may have overstepped the usual boundaries of angst with this chapter, so be warned. Feedback, as usual, is welcome. (Speaking of which, I flat-out refuse to kill off any of the Big Three until they've at least managed to kidnap one of the main characters. They're very useful to have around as villains.)

Also, although I know that Hank Summers actually has brown eyes, I've decided to pretend that I don't. And before anyone asks, in this fic, Gunn wouldn't have recognized Angel by sight because he's never seen a picture of him or anything, only read about him.

**8. The Fire**

Buffy needed to think. After Ripper gave her the Council contact number ("Just in case you change your mind, darling") and left to re-claim his Gem, she spent her time wandering through the city, barely aware of the sunrise or of the day progressing. She passed stores, restaurants, cafés, office buildings and apartment blocks without actually seeing any of them.

Her mind was too caught up in trying to figure out what she should do next, and in wondering if she had ever been right in leaving Sunnydale. _It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that would've made Merrick proud. _The thought made her chest constrict. Merrick would never have supported the idea of running away; he would've said that no-one escapes their destiny, and that trying to shows lack of courage.

But she couldn't go back – couldn't even stand the idea of living with a mother who was unable to accept the person she had become, and a sister she barely knew and didn't get along with. She knew there was only one way she could still earn points in the Merrick Good Book and lessen the guilt she was feeling: accepting her destiny as the Chosen One.

Buffy was starting to realize that being the Slayer wasn't just a job. It was quickly becoming a huge part of the way she defined herself.

_Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer. Not quite as catchy as, say, 'Buffy Summers, Queen of Fashion', but it's close enough. _

---

The sun was already setting by the time she headed back to the demon hunters' headquarters, fully determined to make herself useful. After the last few turmoil-filled days, she was more than ready to introduce a few ugly creature-of-the-night-y things to the point of her stake – or any other kind of sharp weapon, for that matter.

She was prepared to find the headquarters mostly empty when she arrived, since the demon hunters would've set out on their newest mission as soon as the sun set. The front door was open, but most of the lights were off and it was unusually quiet inside. _The can't _all_ have left. Didn't Fred say at least two of them stayed behind to keep watch every night? _"Hello? Anybody in here?"

"Buffy?" Fred's voice was coming from somewhere down the hallway. Sure enough, the Southern girl was standing in the kitchen doorway, smiling widely. "Hey there. We've been waitin' for _ages_."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Buffy grinned sheepishly and followed her into the kitchen. "Didn't mean to go AWOL for day, I just…" _Had a run-in with a warlock stalker? Better not go there. _"Had a lot to think about."

"Oh, that's fine. Our guest didn't mind waiting." If possible, Fred's smile had widened even further.

"What guest?" Buffy spotted Gunn leaning back against the counter near the fridge, but Fred was blocking her view of the kitchen table. With a pounding heart, she waited until the Southern girl had stepped aside before focusing on the figure seated at the table. _It can't be him. It wouldn't be him._

And it wasn't him – wasn't Angel. It was her father.

_No way. It's … some sort of illusion. Someone else disguised as my dad. _She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Who are you?"

The man actually looked hurt. He had her father's chestnut brown hair and ice-blue eyes (Dawn had definitely inherited her looks from him) but Buffy flat-out refused to believe that the same father who recently wanted to send her to a correctional boarding school was now sitting calmly at the kitchen table in the headquarters of a crew of demon hunters.

"It's me, honey. I wanted…" he sighed. "I was _hoping_ we could talk."

"Yeah, right. My dad, King of Not Handling Responsibility, wants to talk? Was that the best you could do?" She placed both hands on the kitchen table and leaned forward. "Because personally, I'd at least do my research before risking a serious beating by impersonating the Slayer's father."

Hank Summers looked up into his daughter's grim face and marveled at how completely she'd transformed. "Buffy, I _swear_," he said hoarsely, "this isn't some kind of trick. It's really me."

She looked into his eyes and realized that he was telling the truth. "Dad? But how did you find me? And what are you even doing here? The last time we met," she pointed out coolly, "you basically told me that I was insane and you didn't want to see me any more."

"I was wrong. I'm so sorry – I was wrong, and I know that now – but at the time I found it easier to believe that you were lying than to believe in what you were saying." He looked up at her pleadingly. "Can you forgive me?"

Buffy smiled hesitantly. _Oh my God. He's apologizing. When was the last time that happened? _She didn't know what had happened to change her father's mind, but she couldn't help feeling both relieved and happy. "Sure thing. But you owe me an explanation, and a whole bunch of ice cream."

He laughed. "Fair enough. Well, here goes the explanation part: after your mother called to say you were missing - she's worried sick, by the way - we were hoping that you might have come here. I spent days looking in all the places where I thought you might have gone, and then I received a call from someone who said he might know where you were. All he needed from me was a description to confirm that it was you."

Buffy was puzzled. "Who?"

"I'm getting to that part. I arranged to meet him, and he told me … well, a lot of what you had told me. Except he showed me books and documents to prove it, and finally I believed him." He smiled at her lovingly. "If it hadn't been for Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, I might never have fou–"

Buffy stood up so quickly she knocked her chair over. "You met with _Wesley_? Dad, that guy _kidnapped _me. He had me locked into this little room and strapped down – if I hadn't gotten out of there, he probably would've –"

"I know," Hank said calmly. "I gave him my permission, after he told me that you had been brainwashed by that vampire."

"You gave him … you _knew?_" Buffy could barely breathe. _He _let _that son of a bitch tie me down in that room._ "I wasn't brainwashed!" Her voice rose as anger won out over sadness. "There was no reason for him to do what he did! Even if Angelus had tried something on me, I could've handled it! That's what a Slayer _does_. Or didn't he explain that to you?"

"Uh, time out." Gunn raised a hand warily. "Not that I'm all up on my vampire lore or anything, but didn't Angelus have his soul restored back when the gypsies pulled a fast one on him? What happened, he lost it again?"

"What are you talking about?" Buffy asked irritably. "Vampires don't have souls. You know that."

Gunn started to explain, but Hank interrupted him. "That's not important. Point is, he's a vampire, and he was trying to hurt my daughter."

Buffy glared at him. "Dad. Shut up." Hank opened his mouth to respond and was promptly cut off by the sound of shattering glass.

---

The sound had come from one of the training rooms, and as they raced towards it – that is, Buffy, Gunn and Fred raced towards it while Hank mumbled an apology and stayed in the kitchen – they were initially certain that someone had broken in. As soon as they got the training room door open, they realized it was whole different story.

The room was in flames. An incendiary bomb of some kind had been hurled through the window, and it had done its work quickly. The carpet, the furniture – anything that could burn was burning, and the smoke was already thick enough to cause tear-inducing coughing and obscured vision. Once they'd recovered from their shock the three of them backed out quickly and managed to get the door shut, to contain the fire for as long as possible.

"We've got a fire extinguisher in the kitchen," Fred said. Her voice was raspy and the hand that she lifted to wipe soot off her forehead was shaking.

Buffy shook her head. "It's too far gone for that – call 911." She had seen a telephone in the kitchen earlier. As Fred ran off she turned to Gunn, who was staring at the door to the training room, underneath which smoke had started escaping. "Is there anyone else in the building?"

Gunn shook his head. "No. It's just the four of us."

Buffy was relieved. "All right. As soon as Fred makes the call, I say we all get out of here and –"

This time the sound came from upstairs, and they could distinguish not only the crash as the window shattered, but also a thud as the bomb hit the floor and the crackling of flames only a moment later.

"Damn it. _Damn it!_" Gunn's head swiveled to look up at the ceiling. The noise repeated itself, this time on the first floor and alarmingly close by. "They're burning the whole place down!"

"We've got to get out. _Now._" Buffy grabbed his arm when he didn't move and managed to get him to run to the kitchen. They found Fred in there alone – she managed to make herself heard above the roaring of the flames long enough to tell them that Hank had already run out.

_Typical. My dad, the hero. _Buffy was about to suggest they head out the front door when she realized that the kitchen window was their nearest escape route. It opened far enough for all them to climb out, although Gunn had a tight squeeze. They got as far away as they could while staying within sight of the building and then turned to look back.

The entire building was now on fire; flames lashed out of the windows and lit it from the inside, like some ghastly large-scale version of the candle in a jack-o'-lantern. Dark billows of smoke wreathed the building and rose up into the night sky.

"It's gone." Gunn's voice was hollow. He stared at the building with an almost painfully strained expression on his face. Demons and vampires he could handle, but fire wasn't something he could run through with a sword. He didn't know how to fight it, and in his mind it had beaten him. "Gone."

"At least no one was hurt." Fred didn't sound any more cheerful than he did, but Buffy could tell she was trying to. "It coulda been so much worse, Charles."

Buffy didn't know what to say. She wished could she offer some kind of assurance about catching whoever did this, but she knew that the demon hunters had a lot of enemies. Every demon, vampire and dark magick practitioner in Los Angeles was a likely suspect. Whoever had tossed the first bomb had gotten away before any of them could spot him (or her), as had the people responsible for the following bombs. _They're long gone by now._

More pressing was the issue of where they'd go now that their home had been destroyed. If possible, Gunn's face became even more strained after Buffy asked the question, and Fred looked at him in concern.

"We'll wait 'til the others come back before makin' any decisions," she answered, "but after this … I don't think we'll all be able to stay together. Anne could take a few in, I guess, but as for the rest of us…" she turned and Buffy saw tears making their way down her cheeks. "I don't know. I really don't."

Gunn came out of his own state of misery long enough to put his arms around her, allowing her to cry into his soot-stained shoulder. Buffy felt like an outsider peering in at their grief and instead looked away towards the building – only to notice something that seemed to stop her pulse completely.

---

The front door was blocked. From the _outside_. Of course they hadn't noticed, having escaped out of the kitchen window – but that window had been locked until Buffy had opened it_. So how did my dad get out?_

Buffy turned to Fred urgently. "Fred. Fred, listen to me. You said my dad ran out earlier. Did you actually see him leave the building?"

Fred lifted her head, looking surprised and mildly disoriented. "I… no, but he left the kitchen and headed towards the front door, so I thought…"

Buffy was already running towards the building before Fred had finished the sentence. _Oh God. Oh God Oh God Oh God. Please, please, _please _let my dad have made it out. If you're up there, anywhere, let him be safe. Not… not hurt, or… _She couldn't even think it. She tugged at the heavy boards nailed across the door, pulling at them in panic until they tore free of the wall.

She backed away a little – she could feel the ferocious heat from inside even through the door – and then put all of her energy into kicking the door in. It gave way eventually and she forced her way inside, trying to ignore the searing heat from the nearest flames. She didn't bother shouting; there was no way her father could have heard her, even if he was still conscious.

_And if he's even in here, which I'm not sure he is, being unconscious doesn't mean that he's… not alive. It doesn't mean… _

The thought died away as she saw him. It wasn't all of him, just his legs. The rest of his body was buried beneath the rubble where part of the ceiling had collapsed. He was lying completely still.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should be doing something. She should be trying to reach her father's body beneath the heavy pile of rubble. She should be worrying about the fact that the building was crumbling around her, being devoured by flames that were starting to close in on her.

But she couldn't. She knew it would all be useless, because her father was dead. Her father who owed her ice cream, her father who had dressed up as a ridiculously young Santa every Christmas since she was born, her father who had been alive only a few hours ago, was dead. He had been dead long before she reached him. And she couldn't do anything about it.

Her limbs were numb and her mind had gone completely blank, save for one thought.

_No. _

---


	9. The Guilt

**Author's Note:** So I've returned the fic to its Buffy-and-Angel roots in this chapter, and in the next one I'll probably take it a step further and move them out of LA. Sadly, in this fic, death is death and Hank Summers isn't coming back.

As to the question of whodunit, I think that'll be saved for later chapters. At this point, it's anybody's guess. I majorly appreciate all the feedback, including the criticism (duly noted, by the way) and I'm honestly glad people don't have to agree with all the events of this fic to like it. :-P

**9. The Guilt**

By the time the fire brigade made it to the site, the building was a smoke-blackened ruin being finished off by the last remains of the fire. The building was listed in city records as a warehouse, and so the firemen were surprised to find entire rooms filled with bunk beds and even a room that looked like it had once been a fully equipped kitchen.

Spectators and curious by-passers had lined up across the street to watch the blaze being put out, but when the firemen got around to questioning them, it turned out that none of them had been around when the fire started and they had no idea who might have lived there. As one of the men put it later on, "Either they were all very convincing liars, or whoever lived in that building kept a seriously low profile."

They found only one body in the building. Dental records would eventually identify him as Henry "Hank" Summers, and his family would be contacted, including his ex-wife.

Until then, he was simply a body to be carted off to the morgue like any other.

---

Buffy had been at the East Hills Teen Center for an entire day before she managed to eat anything. Before that, the guilt had formed a lump in her throat which felt solid enough to make swallowing anything an uncomfortable experience. But after about twenty-four hours the guilt took on a new form: a jagged, cold splinter that slipped itself mercilessly into her heart and lodged there. It was far more painful than the lump in her throat, but at least it allowed her to eat.

She spent most of her time sitting in the room she had been assigned to sleep in (along with three other girls who never seemed to be around until nightfall). But while her body stayed in the room, her spirit was somewhere else completely.

Sometimes she was at her eighth birthday party, when her father had hired a clown who made all the kids laugh so hard that their cheeks and sides ached. She had been the most popular girl in her class for weeks afterwards, and everybody talked about how great it had been.

She still remembered the clown pulling out a cream pie, looking at it in astonishment as though he didn't know how it had gotten there, and then pretending to trip so that the pie landed right in her father's face. For one breathless moment she'd thought he would be angry, but instead he'd sputtered comically, grinned and then made a theatrical bow to the audience. Oh, they'd laughed _so _hard!

At other times she was sitting across from him at the dinner table, chattering animatedly like a sparrow about what she'd done at school that day while he listened intently, occasionally spooning food into his mouth but never taking his eyes off her face. He'd laugh when she told him something she thought was funny, and groan when she related some horrifying new tale of what her least favorite teacher had put them through that day. He never acted like anything she said was unimportant, or trivial; not back then, anyway. And he had never made her feel small.

A thousand scenes, a thousand situations, a thousand ways in which her father had cared for her recreated themselves in her mind and she was forced to realize that no matter how angry she might have been with him, she had never hated him. As she grew older they'd grown apart, yes, but she'd always felt as though he'd be there when she needed him. That's why it had hurt so much when he'd wanted to send her away.

_Hurt? That didn't __hurt_, she caught herself thinking. _That was nothing, nothing at all compared to this._

Because he was gone. Gone, and there was nothing she could do to save him. Gone, like Merrick. She hadn't been able to save him either. _What's the point of being a superhero if you can't save the people who matter?_

Instead she got to save complete strangers, people she'd never met before in her life and probably wouldn't meet again. People who had never tucked her in at night, or taught her how to tie her shoelaces ("Rabbit ears," he'd say patiently, again and again. "Just loop over and through – go on, you can do it"). People who had never carved her name into a painted block of wood for her to hang on her bedroom door, or watched her write her first whole sentence, or bought her a fairy costume to wear on Halloween. People who weren't her father.

She would willingly have given the lives of all those people in exchange for his, and that only made her feel even more guilty.

---

Anne Steele kept a close eye on Buffy, even if Buffy didn't realize it. Fred and Gunn had reluctantly agreed to give her space, on Anne's advice: "She needs time. And you guys aren't exactly in top shape right now either, so maybe you should all just give each other a little space." So Buffy was allowed to remain in her state of near-sleepwalking for another three days. She stood, she sat, she ate, occasionally she spoke, and she did it all with the same dead expression on her face.

And then, at the end of the fourth day, he found her.

Anne knew who he was, of course. He'd spent time in LA before, generally keeping a low profile and staying away from places like the East Hills shelter, but once in a while she'd get her hands on some pig's blood and persuade him to take it. "It's not charity," she'd say firmly. "Just common kindness. Besides, you can't tell me you're not tired of the rats."

He showed up at the door that fourth night after Buffy's arrival, looked Anne right in the eyes and said: "She's here, isn't she?"

Anne crossed her arms and eyed him thoughtfully. "You disappear for two years and I don't even get a hello?"

He is pale, handsome face offered up a fleeting smile. "Hello."

She nodded. "All right, _now _you can start asking questions about my guests that I may or may not want to answer."

"Her name is Buffy," he said carefully. "Shoulder-length blonde hair, green eyes. Talks a lot."

"Well, we've got a Buffy staying in one of the rooms upstairs, but I think it must be the wrong one. She's barely said two words since she got here." Anne saw mild concern in his expression and wondered whether or not he knew about the fire. "But then again, I wouldn't be talking much either if my dad had just died."

The concern deepened, became laced with surprise and pity. "What –"

"You can ask her yourself." Anne had stepped aside. "Come on in. She should be upstairs now, and the other girls won't be in for another few hours at least."

Angel hesitated. "I'm not sure she'll be willing to see me. She thinks I'm…"

"A soulless, evil demon?" Anne smiled grimly. "Not anymore. I managed to set that story straight, although it wasn't easy to get her to believe me – some warlock had given her an edited version of your history, soul-restoration excluded – and apparently your acting skills can be very convincing."

He shrugged, looking faintly ashamed of himself. He stored the word 'warlock' away in his mind and promised himself he'd deal with Ripper soon. "I did what I had to."

She nodded slowly. "I believe you. Now all you've got to do is convince her."

---

Buffy felt his presence before he'd even stepped foot through the door. Of course she didn't hear him – he moved more silently than his own shadow – it wasn't a sound, or a scent, that told her he was there. She just knew. There was a big difference between the way it felt to be in a room with Angel in it, and the way it felt to be in any other room. _Strange. I barely know the him, and already I've got an Angel radar. _Granted, now she knew nearly everything _about_ him, but that wasn't the same thing.

She sat on the edge of the bed she had slept on for the last few nights, staring down at the darkened street through a smudged window. She didn't turn to look at him.

"You could have knocked."

"Next time," he promised her. "Besides, you knew it was me."

She didn't really have any answer to that. "Anne says you're not evil. That you have a soul. And that you were … pretending, back when those vampires attacked the Council building. Is that true?"

He moved forward cautiously to stand near the foot of the bed, barely an arm's length away from her. She still didn't look at him, but at least he could see her more clearly. And what he saw made him feel achingly sorry for her. "Yes."

She sighed and reached out to place her fingertips lightly against the cool glass of the windowpane. "Good."

She was so very different from the girl he remembered, and yet she hadn't really changed. Once her grief passed, he could see that she would slip easily back into her old ways. She was lucky in that sense. _It won't change her like it changed me. _

"My dad is dead," she told him, in a flat, emotionless monotone. "He was trapped in a burning building. Did you know that?"

He was watching her very, very closely. "Anne told me he died. She didn't mention how."

Buffy didn't react at all to his answer, almost as though he hadn't spoken. "I think I could've saved him, but I didn't."

Now he was even more worried. He recognized that line of thought, and it didn't lead anywhere good. "It wasn't your fault," he said, cautiously but firmly.

"Yes, it was." Her voice came out in a whisper. "He came to see me. That's the only reason he was there when the fire started. Because he wanted to see _me_."

"You didn't know what was going to happen."

"He wanted to apologize. And for some reason I started yelling at him." The hand still resting against the windowpane trembled, while the other one gripped the quilt covering the bed. "The last words I ever said to my father were 'shut up'."

She started to laugh, but the sound somehow dissolved into a sob and before she could stop herself she was crying helplessly. She hadn't cried since the fire happened, not once, and now suddenly her entire body was shaking as wave after wave of guilt and grief flooded through her.

It was instinct and not conscious thinking that led Angel to sit beside her on the quilt-covered bed and wrap her shuddering body in his arms. He couldn't offer her any warmth – if anything, his cold skin absorbed the heat from hers. But she was able to feel the weight of his arms around her and bury her tear-soaked face in the solid unyielding expanse of his chest, and that was enough to give her infinite comfort. The very _thereness _of him, the fact that he was undoubtedly near her and with her, anchored her firmly in the present. It allowed her to release her memories of her father back into the past and mourn him fully.

She was trying to say something between the uncontrollable sobs, but he hushed her until she stopped trying to speak and gave way completely to the tears. _It was my fault, _she wanted to say. _I let him die. _And maybe he already knew that was what she was trying to tell him. Maybe that was why he held her a little more tightly, a little closer to him.

"No," he said forcefully, with his mouth pressed against her hair. "No. Don't ever blame yourself for something you didn't do. If the guilt wins, it'll kill you."

And if she said anything like "I hope so", it was whispered into the fabric of his shirt and he thankfully didn't hear it.

---

"Tell me about them," she said quietly, some time later. He looked down at her in surprise. She had been lying silently in his arms for at least twenty minutes and he'd thought she'd fallen asleep. From what he could see of her face her eyes were only half-open, and her breathing had slowed to an almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest, but she was definitely awake.

He didn't need to ask who she meant. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything. I can't really trust anything Ripper said. And besides," she added softly, "I want to hear it from you."

He paused to gather his thoughts and stroked her back almost automatically, his palm skimming over both soft flesh and firm muscles that betrayed the apparent frailty of her slim frame. She sighed and leaned in to him, unashamed to find his touch soothing. There wasn't much room left for embarrassment between them.

"Before you start," she whispered, "I want you to know that if it was them – if they were in any way responsible – they'll all die."

He nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yes. They will."

She was satisfied with this answer and he began the story of how Darla was sired by the Master in 1609, his voice never rising above a whisper. The room was otherwise completely silent and every word he spoke was clearly heard as he painted a verbal portrait of his sire for her, detailing everything he knew about her life before she'd found him in Galway.

He hesitated to tell her about his own life, both before and after he was turned into a vampire, but when his voice fell silent she moved restlessly in his arms and urged him to continue. "I want to know," she said firmly.

He smiled to himself at her persistence. "Straight from the horse's mouth, and nothing less?"

For the first time in days, she felt like smiling. She didn't, but it was close. "Something like that. You just can't trust your average warlock storyteller these days."

Angel sighed. "You wouldn't have believed him if I hadn't acted like Angelus when we were in the Council building."

Part of her wanted to pull away from him so she could look at his face, but the rest of her was far too comfortable to want to move at all. "Why did you do that?"

He opened his mouth to answer and then changed his mind. "To understand that, you'd have to understand them."

She made an indignant noise. "Which I already would, if you hadn't stopped in the middle of the story."

His hands stopped stroking her back and when he spoke his injured tone was completely betrayed by the amusement in his eyes, which she couldn't see but was well aware of. "Is everything my fault?"

"It is now. What kind of storyteller are you anyway?" She placed his hand firmly on her back and nudged him to resume stroking. "I'm not paying you for nothing."

He laughed quietly. "You're not paying me at all."

She could feel herself drifting off to sleep and welcomed it, knowing that for the first night since her father's death she would sleep soundly. "That," she murmured obstinately, "is not the point."

---


	10. The Return

**Author's Note:** I've changed the difference between Dawn and Buffy's ages here from six to four years (I figured a twelve-year-old would be more useful to have in the story than ten-year-old), and my description of Riley is slightly different from Marc Blucas's actual appearance (I swear, that man's eye color is impossible to pin down). As always, reviews would be greatly appreciated.

**10. The Return**

Buffy spent another week at the East Hills Shelter, during which she devoted nearly every spare moment to trying to track down the people responsible for the fire. Angel initially tried to dissuade her, but after seeing how determined she was, he kept quiet on the improbability of finding the arsonists and instead spent his waking hours helping her to question information-pandering demons and following trails that always turned out to be either completely false or a dead end.

Anne had cleared out a decent-sized area of the shelter's basement to make room for a bed, and Angel usually slept there between sunrise and noon. At noon Buffy would come down to see him and they'd plan that day's itinerary, which often involved at least a few hours' sojourn through the city's sewer system until the sun set and Angel was able to walk aboveground.

They were usually businesslike with each other, but ever since the night he'd arrived at the shelter there was an undeniable connection between them, something they quietly accepted but never talked about. Each of them was afraid of pushing the other one away by discussing it.

At the end of the sixth day of tireless searching, Buffy admitted defeat. She still desperately wanted to take her revenge on whoever had been behind the fire that took her father's life, but it had proven impossible to track them – they'd left no traces at the scene – and she finally agreed to stop searching, at least for the time being.

---

"So hey, here's a plan." Buffy sat on Angel's bed on the afternoon of the seventh day, legs crossed, back resting against the headboard and hands clasped firmly around a much-needed cup of coffee. She'd become extremely familiar with the basement in the past week and it was easier to spend time down there with him than upstairs with people who kept asking how she was doing. "Let's go to Vegas."

Angel looked at her quizzically. He was testing a sword that he had 'borrowed' from the last demon they questioned, and had just finished bringing it through an elegant three-sixty swing. "Why Vegas?"

She shrugged. "First place that came to mind. I mean, we don't have any reason to stay in LA any longer. So I'm thinking, Sin City would be a good place to go. You know, 'cause of the bright lights and the, uh, sin. And I mean fun sin," she added hurriedly, "not evil sin. Tequila-and-gambling-type sin, rather than the kind that results in dead bodies and general mayhem."

He placed the sword carefully on the floor. "Buffy –"

"All right," she interrupted, "maybe I'm too young for tequila and gambling. But I've never been to San Francisco. We could go there. Or … or anywhere, really. The world is our generic shellfish of choice."

The look he gave her was unmistakably solemn. "You know where we need to go."

"New York?" she said hopefully, although she had a good idea that wasn't what he meant.

The solemn expression didn't budge. "You need to return to Sunnydale. Your mother is worried about you – you said so yourself –"

"My dad said it," she corrected him harshly. "Personally, I think she'll get over it. Two, maybe three weeks tops and then it's 'Buffy who?'."

"That's not true, and you know it. And besides, that's not the only issue here." He sighed and ran a hand through the short mass of his dark hair. "This place – the way you're living now – it's not right. You're too young to be spending your days in the basement of a homeless shelter with a 240-year-old vampire. You should be going to school, and –"

"There are schools in LA," she pointed out. "Lots of them. I can show you pictures if you don't believe me."

"And living with your family," he continued, ignoring the interruption. "You should be around people your own age, people who care about you."

_You care about me. Don't you? _She didn't bother saying it. It sounded too needy, too girlish. And besides, she was afraid of what his answer might be. "I'm fine here," she said. "And let me tell you, normal life? Not that big a deal. Been there, done that, bought the handmade mugs. I don't want to go back to pretending I'm something that I'm not."

"You won't need to pretend. You're sixteen-year-old girl, as well as a Slayer. You should be living the same kind of life as other girls." She opened her mouth to argue with this, but he wouldn't give her the chance. "And since you've decided to accept the fact that you _are_ the Slayer, there's no better place to do your job than the Hellmouth. They'll need you there."

She didn't want to see the sense in what he was saying, but she couldn't seem to help it. "'They' who?"

"All the people who will die if you're not around to save them." He gave her a searching, faintly amused look. "After all, that's what you do, isn't it? Save people?"

"Only because they never seem to manage to save themselves," she groused. "And besides, you do it too." But she could no longer deny that he was right. She needed to be in Sunnydale. She peered into her near-empty coffee mug to avoid looking at his face before asking the question that had been on her mind ever since he started talking about going back. "What about you? Are you planning on staying here, or…?"

The silence stretched for so long that she was forced, out of a sudden need to know the worst, to look up at him. She was both surprised and touched by the emotion in his dark eyes. It told her that it had been a long time since anyone had placed so much importance on what he did or where he went, and that it meant a lot to him that she'd asked.

She decided to spare him the trouble of expressing that emotion in words. "You know what, don't bother answering that one. When are we leaving?"

---

They traveled by night, of course. Saying goodbye to the people at the shelter was quickly done, and not as painful as Buffy had thought it would be, and then before she knew it they were on the train to Sunnydale. She could almost have sworn it was exactly the same train that had taken them to Los Angeles, but maybe that was just déjà vu. Luckily Angel knew his way around Sunnydale better than Buffy did, or else it would have taken them a lot longer than a mere half an hour to find 1630 Revello Drive from the train station.

They were the only two people in sight on the street, which probably had something to do with the fact that it was past midnight and Sunnydale inhabitants, as a rule, didn't like to venture out of their homes at night. None of the lights were on in the Summers' residence, but Joyce's car was parked in the driveway, so they could only assume that she was at home.

They made it all the way to the porch before Buffy lost her nerve. "If I ring the doorbell now, I'll wake them. And let me tell you, being woken up at whatever dead-of-the-night time it is now would be enough to make anyone cranky. Let's come back in the morning."

She turned to walk off the porch, but Angel caught hold of her shoulders and gently swiveled her around to face the front door. "You belong here. And I'm pretty sure the fact that you're still alive will more than make up for your bad timing. Now ring the bell."

She stared at the doorbell and bit her lip indecisively, until Angel finally leaned forward and moved one of his hands from her shoulder to take hold of her right hand. He lifted it until it was barely an inch away from the doorbell and pressed her forefinger into it lightly until they could hear the ringing from inside the house. Then he let go and stepped back. "There," he whispered, and she could hear rather than see his smile. "Not so hard after all, was it?"

When she turned to respond, he was gone. She spent a bewildered moment looking down the street for him before the front door opened and her attention was absorbed by the sight of the woman standing in the doorway.

---

Joyce Summers had transformed almost completely since the night Buffy left. First the disappearance of her daughter, and then the death of her ex-husband, had taken its toll on her wellbeing. There were dark circles under her eyes and a fine webbing of wrinkles that Buffy couldn't remember seeing before. She had lost weight as well, to the point of unhealthy gauntness, and she had the air of a woman who was only waiting for even worse news to come along to finish her off completely.

But as she recognized her daughter, amazement, hope and joy blended and crept into her features. The face that had been dispirited and nearly lifeless a moment ago was suddenly alight with happiness. "Buffy! Oh my God!" She enveloped her daughter in a hug that was so tight it was almost bone-crushing. "You're back. You're _here_." Buffy could feel her mother's tears on her neck. "I called the police, but of course they were useless, and then I thought … when I heard about the fire, I assumed you'd … and they were talking to me about holding a – a double memorial service, I think they called it – but I couldn't stop hoping that you were still out there somewhere…"

She pulled back and semi-laughed at herself. "God, look at me, keeping you outside like this! Come in, honey." She led Buffy into the living room and made sure she was comfortable on the couch before bustling into the kitchen. "You must be starving – you just sit right there and I'll get you something. Won't take me a minute."

---

Buffy sat in the living room she barely recognized – she had barely lived in the house for a week, and there had been a lot of changes made since she left – and tried to dispel the extreme awkwardness that had come over her. _This is where I belong, _she thought, repeating Angel's words to herself. _This is home._ But the words sounded hollow and she knew they weren't true. The basement of the shelter had felt more like home.

Joyce returned to the living room holding a tray loaded with sandwiches and two mugs of hot chocolate. "There." She set it down on the coffee table and then sat down next to Buffy on the sofa. She held her daughter's hands in both of her own as though to assure herself that Buffy was really there. "So tell me everything. How are you? Where have you been? Have you…" her face darkened and she took a deep breath. "Did you hear about your father?"

Buffy looked down at the carpet so that her mother wouldn't see the guilt in her eyes. "Yeah," she said quietly. "I heard." Then she gave her mother an edited version of what she'd done after running away. She made it sound as though she'd only made it to the outskirts of Sunnydale before achecking into the Bluebird motel – which she could accurately describe after having been there with Angel. She didn't gave any indication whatsoever of having been in LA, or having been involved in the fire that killed her father.

Luckily, her mother didn't question her story: she only said she was glad nothing bad had happened to her and hoped that next time she was upset, she wouldn't turn to running away as a solution. "We'll get through this together," she told her. "You, me and Dawn. We still have each other, thank God." Her eyes had filled with tears and she wiped them away with her hand. "I don't want to wake her now – the poor child doesn't sleep enough as it is – but I know she'll be happy to see you."

They talked for another hour, during which Buffy tried to keep up her end of the conversation despite the fact that her mind was mostly occupied with wondering about where Angel had disappeared to and planning the scolding she was going to give him for leaving her to face her mother alone without warning her first.

Eventually her mother remarked that she looked exhausted and led her upstairs to her old bedroom, which had been untouched since she left it. "I wanted it to stay exactly the way you remembered it, so that if – _when _you came back, you'd be comfortable in it."

Buffy thanked her, and after her mother had left, she realized that she had been right. Her bedroom was probably the only part of the house that actually felt something like home; the only part she could be truly comfortable in. _This place isn't home, not yet. But I guess it still could be. _

---

Buffy was awoken the next morning by shrill screams as her twelve-year-old sister flung herself through the bedroom door and onto her bed, nearly knocking all the breath out of her body. "You're home! I can't believe this! I mean, mom said you were back and I was like, _no way_, but you're really here!"

Buffy laughed and tried to sit up despite the fact that Dawn's arms were wrapped tightly around her torso. "Um, Dawnie? Some breathing space would be nice."

"Oh. Right." Dawn pulled back and expressed her feelings in a beaming smile instead. "So, what happened? Mom says I'm not supposed to say anything about how stupid it was for you to run away in the first place – well, it _was_," she added defensively, as Buffy gave her a look, "you could've just stayed here and, you know, resolved your issues."

Buffy was surprised by her sister's vocabulary. "'Resolved my issues'?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Have you been watching Dr. Phil again?"

Dawn shrugged, looking sheepish. "Only when there's nothing better on," she lied. "Anyway, point is, you didn't have to scare everyone by running off like that. I mean, you could at least have taken me with you."

Buffy grinned. "Oh, so _that's _what this is about. Listen, you didn't miss out on anything. Really. All I did was mooch around the Bluebird for a couple of weeks, so even if you had come with me you'd have been bored out of your mind."

Dawn didn't look completely convinced. "Really? You never left Sunnydale?"

Buffy felt the pang of a guilty conscience and smiled to cover it. "Yup. I was only a few blocks away this whole time."

"That's so lame. If I was going to run away, I'd totally head to Vegas. Or if I couldn't get that far, maybe LA."

"Let me guess." Buffy arched an eyebrow, grinning. "To be in the Dr. Phil audience?"

Dawn stuck her tongue out at her sister and aimed a punch at Buffy's shoulder. She missed, giving Buffy the opportunity to reach out and grab her, tickling her mercilessly until she finally confessed the truth.

"I'd want to see the place where Dad … where it happened," Dawn admitted, and the giggling that had filled the room while Buffy was tickling her was suddenly replaced by hushed silence. "Just once."

Buffy felt remorse twist itself like a knife blade through her ribs, and she couldn't think of anything to say in response. Her mouth opened and she struggled to formulate a sentence, but no sound came out. Not a single word.

---

During breakfast, Joyce encouraged them to spend the day outdoors. "After all," she pointed out, "you've only got a week left until school starts. You might as well make the most of it."

They headed to Sunnydale's only real park, which was depressingly enough situated right next to Restfield cemetery (with twelve cemeteries in one town, it was hard to avoid them). It was a mild, sunny day, and it seemed as though half of Sunnydale's population had decided to spend it at the park. Dawn had brought a bright orange Frisbee along, and although Buffy made a lighthearted remark about Frisbees being for kids with dogs, not older sisters, she agreed to play with her. She felt like she owed her that – and a lot more – for the part she had played in their father's death.

"Ready?" Dawn stood as far away as she could without losing sight of Buffy, and had to yell to make herself heard above the talking and laughter of the people surrounding them. She raised the Frisbee and prepared to throw it. "Okay, here it comes!"

Buffy was prepared and reached out as Dawn tossed the Frisbee, but it didn't come anywhere near her outstretched hands – instead it whizzed past about four feet to her right, missing her range completely. Buffy gave Dawn an exasperated look which she probably couldn't see (although she did yell "Sorry! It wasn't meant to do that!") and turned to look for the Frisbee among the sea of picnic blankets spread out over the improbably green park grass.

She spent a few minutes looking around and asking people if they'd seen a bright orange Frisbee go by (she felt very silly doing it and got several odd looks from other park visitors) before she felt a light tap on her shoulder.

"This yours?" A male voice asked, and she turned to see a boy around her own age holding Dawn's Frisbee. It took a moment for Buffy to stop staring at him long enough to answer him. He was tall and decently broad-shouldered, with sea-green eyes and dark blonde hair. He was also one of the most attractive guys Buffy had ever laid eyes on.

"Uhh…" _Say something! _"Uh, yeah. It is. I… uh… thank you." _Oh, great. Just great. I might as well have 'idiot' stamped on my forehead. _She smiled nervously and took the Frisbee from him. To her surprise he returned her smile and stayed where he was, rather than running to get away from her as fast as possible, which is what she'd assumed he'd do.

"I heard you asking about it," he explained. "Not many Frisbees that color lying around here."

"No. I guess most people prefer colors that aren't bright enough to cause permanent eye damage," she said lightly. She was a little surprised and extremely gratified when he laughed. _Okay. This isn't going so bad. I might not have to kill myself after all._ "It's actually my little sister's. She picked it out."

"Sure, blame it on the younger sibling," he teased. "That's never been done before."

She pretended to be offended. "_You're_ accusing _me_ of being unoriginal? Isn't that a little hypocritical coming from someone who looks a lot like Beach Party Ken?"

He laughed again and arched an eyebrow at her. "Doesn't that make you Beach Party Barbie?"

"Only with the help of a few growth hormones and a lot of bleach," she answered, deciding to forgive his less-than-clever reply and focus instead on his heart-melting smile. _After all, one moment of lameness doesn't make him any less cute. _

"Listen, I should probably be heading back now," he said reluctantly. "My friends have already left; I'm supposed to catch up with them down at the Bronze. But I'll see you around, right?"

She smiled. "Probably. I'm not planning to skip town any time soon." He nodded and walked away, turning back once to wave at her.

As she made her way back slowly to where Dawn was waiting, she rewound the conversation in her head and it struck her suddenly that the entire time she'd been talking to Mr. Tall And Blonde, she hadn't once thought about Angel.

And for some reason, that made her feel ashamed of herself.

---


	11. The Call

**Author's Note:** Okay, so again with the angst warning, but I had to put in the … thing that happens in the second part … to get the fic moving the way I want it to. In either the next chapter or the one after that I'll have Buffy start at Sunnydale High, and hopefully there will be a lot less angst after that. Feedback is uber-welcome.

**11. The Call**

By the time she sensed him, she was already in bed and waiting for sleep to tug her into unconsciousness. It took a while to convince her body to leave the warm comfort of the bed, but eventually she managed it. She slipped on a pair of jeans under her nightgown and pulled a jacket over it before sliding her bedroom window open as quietly as possible. After having climbed out the window once before on the night she'd run away, doing it a second time was comparatively easy.

He was waiting underneath the tree that stood just outside of the house, its shade making it even harder for any curious neighbors to see him. Buffy would've been more worried about meeting him out in front of the house if she hadn't known that her mother's bedroom window faced the back yard, and at this time of night there was very little chance that Joyce would be roaming outside of her own bedroom and spot them.

"Where were you?" she asked as soon as she reached him. Her tone was highly accusatory. "I turn around and suddenly there's just an Angel-shaped hole in the air. You could've at least stayed to lurk comfortingly somewhere nearby."

It struck him that the only time he ever felt like smiling was around her. There was something about the way she treated him that made him feel almost human, as though he naturally belonged in her wholesome, sunlit world. It was a delusion, certainly, but one that was too good to want to let go of.

He'd only been away from her for a day and he'd already had time to miss her, although of course he wasn't about to say so. "Don't you think your neighbors might have had a problem with that?"

She thought about this for a moment. "Okay, so maybe lurking strangers are the number one fear of any normal suburban family – but trust me, no one around here is normal, so you'd be safe."

She pointed to house number 1628. "For example, if Mrs. Kalish over there caught sight of you, she'd probably keep you tied up in her basement until you agreed to become her seventh husband."

Angel raised his eyebrows in evident amusement. "Am I supposed to be flattered?"

Buffy shrugged. "Not really. She tried the same thing on Kenny the postman yesterday. He barely got away in one piece."

"Then I guess it was lucky for me that I couldn't stay. And before you ask again," he said, seeing from her expression that she was about to berate him for not telling her where he'd gone, "I had to see a man about a house."

She looked doubtful. "What, like a vampire real estate agent?"

He smiled briefly. "Something like that. There's a mansion just south of Arguyle cemetery – you probably haven't seen it, it's pretty well hidden – which apparently could use an owner."

"So… you bought it?" Now she looked even more doubtful. "I always thought you were, you know... I mean, maybe not _poor_, but not exactly Bill Gates either." At Angel's quizzical expression, she added, "He's really rich."

"Oh. Well, no, I'm not. I didn't really buy the place, more like … earned it."

She raised her eyebrows. "Do I even want to know what you mean by that?"

"No, probably not." He paused to look up at the house; he could've sworn he'd seen something move behind one of the curtains. But there was nothing there as far as he could tell, and there was no need to alarm Buffy. "So, how have you been? How is your mother doing?"

She smiled at the complete normalcy of those two questions and told him about meeting her mother and everything that had happened since. She left the cute blonde guy out of her story about taking Dawn to the park.

_Hey, it's not like it was anything important, so there's no need to tell Angel about it. Not telling him has nothing at all to do with feeling guilty about finding some other guy as attractive as him. Not that I _should_ feel guilty, because Angel's not my boyfriend, or anything. So I can oogle other guys all I want. Can't I?_

Unfortunately, this wasn't the kind of thought that she was good at keeping to herself. "Angel – what are you?"

He was extremely taken aback by the question, which seemed to him to have come out of nowhere. "I'm a vampire," he said cautiously. "We've been over this already. Remember?"

"No, that's… not what I meant." She was fervently wishing she hadn't opened her mouth in the first place. "I mean, what are you to me?"

_God, could I sound any more Days Of Our Lives? _

"That's your call," he said slowly, realizing that the question was important to her. "But I'd say I'm a friend."

"In the you'll be there if I ever need you kind of way, or the you'll be around once a month kind of way?"

"The first one." There wasn't even the hint of hesitation, either in his voice or in the look he gave her.

She tried not to seem too relieved. "Okay. Good. So, no more disappearances?"

"No more disappearances. I promise."

---

There was only about an hour left until sunrise when Buffy slipped back in through her bedroom window. She considered staying up and then realized that she was far too tired to continue the rest of the day without any sleep. She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow and by the time she awoke it was already one p.m., according to the clock on her bedside table.

She expected to hear Joyce and Dawn's voices as she walked downstairs; usually they'd be having lunch now, and no meal at the Summers home was ever a quiet one. So she was surprised when she made it to the kitchen to see that her mother and sister were sitting at the table, but there were no plates out and they were both ominously silent.

"Good morning," she said hesitantly, slipping into a seat next to Dawn. "Or good afternoon, I guess, although no one ever really says that unless they're English." There was no reply to this; Dawn kept her face turned away and Joyce simply gave her a blank, emotionless look. "Um – is everything all right? I mean, are you guys…"

"We're fine," Joyce said quietly. "But no, Buffy, everything is not _all right._" The phone receiver was resting in one hand, while the other one was clenched in a fist on the table. "I've just had a very interesting conversation with a complete stranger. Do you want to know what he told me?"

Buffy couldn't reply; she was suddenly in the grip of an intuitive panic. This wasn't going to be good news. "He told me that my eldest daughter is a… a 'Slayer', and that she spends her time hunting … things that shouldn't even exist. So at least you weren't lying about _that_."

Buffy made an attempt to speak and was cut off by her mother's rising voice. "He also said that you've been spending the last few weeks in Los Angeles, which apparently is where you ran away to. So not only were you _not_ at the Bluebird motel, you weren't even in _Sunnydale_."

"Mom, please. I can explain, I –"

"No, wait. There's more. He said …" Joyce took a deep breath. "He said that Hank knew that you were in LA. That he came to see you, and that he was with you when he … when the fire broke out." There were tears in her eyes as she looked at her daughter. "And for all I know, it was fire you _started_."

Buffy was shocked. "What? Mom, no. _No. _I would never –"

"I don't want to hear any more of your lies!" Joyce yelled, unable to keep her temper any longer. "Not only are you living some sort of sick double life, but you've lied about everything you've done since you've left this house, including the fact that you were the last person ever to see Hank alive." Here her voice quivered and she had to pause to keep herself from bursting into tears.

"You come here – here, to my _home_ – and act as though you've just jaunted off for a nice little holiday. And amazingly enough, that's not all. You even have the _audacity _to meet strange men in the middle of the night, in front of the house and in full view of everyone – including your little sister!" She gestured avidly at Dawn. "She saw you with him, Buffy. How am I supposed to explain any of this to a twelve-year-old?"

Buffy felt tears welling in her own eyes and she tried desperately to explain. _This can't be happening. It cannot be happening._ "He's not a stranger! I met him a few weeks ago, he –"

"So how come you've never mentioned him before?" Joyce asked icily.

Buffy didn't know what to say to this. "Mom, listen. I swear on – on everything I've ever seen or done or owned, everyone I've ever known – that I had _nothing _to do with the fire that killed dad. I _didn't _start it! I didn't even know it was going to happen. Please. You have to believe me."

As she looked at Buffy, there was no affection whatsoever in Joyce's eyes; only grief and anger. And pain. "No," she said softly. "I don't 'have to' believe you. I _can't_, not after all the lies and the secrets. And quite frankly, Buffy, I don't want to take the chance that I'll be fooled again. Even I have my limits."

Joyce took a breath so deep she seemed to be pulling it from the ground upwards through her body. "I want you out of this house. Today. Now."

Buffy desperately wanted to be able to say something that would make it all better; something that would make her mother believe that she wasn't some sort of pathological liar. She considered asking how her mother could so easily believe things that were told to her by a complete stranger, but then she realized that she had given herself away by attempting to explain things – thereby confirming the stranger's story. _And I guess, after what happened at Hemery, it wouldn't be hard for her to believe pretty much anything bad about me._

Her entire body felt numb and for a long time she couldn't move. She turned to Dawn, but her sister's face was obscured by the curtain of her hair. There were two damp patches on her skirt where her tears had fallen, but she hadn't spoken a single word since Buffy came downstairs. "Dawnie?"

"Don't call me that." Buffy had never heard her sound so harsh before. "You called me that yesterday. Remember? The day I told you I wanted to see the place where dad died? You could've said that you'd seen it – been there, even. You could have told me what happened. You didn't have to keep secrets from _me._" Droplets fell onto the damp patches and she clenched her hands together tightly. "I thought we were friends," she whispered.

"We are," Buffy assured her, in an unsteady voice. "Dawn, you're my sister and I love you."

"Why would you lie, then? About being at the Bluebird all this time? About that guy? You could've told me, Buffy. I would've kept it secret for you. Instead you sneak around and act like I won't notice, because I'm just some dumb kid." She raised her head enough for Buffy to see that her eyes were puffy and her face was tearstained, in direct contrast to Joyce's very pale, dry-cheeked one. "Well, I'm not," she whispered. "I'm not dumb. And I'm not a little kid."

"I'll give you two hours," Joyce said evenly, having regained most of her composure. She looked broken and drained of all energy, all emotion, and despite everything Buffy felt sorry for her. "Two hours to pack your things and get out."

---

The sun was beginning to set, and Angel had only just risen to begin working on his adjustments to the mansion. He had already boarded up the windows in the master bedroom where he slept, but most of the other rooms still needed to have their windows covered safely and even with vampire speed and strength, the job was going to take a while.

He was just starting on the window in one of the leisure rooms when the familiar sensation that he experienced whenever Buffy was nearby threaded its way lightly through his body. _That can't be right. _He was preparing to ignore it when there was an outbreak of loud thudding on the mansion's huge wooden front doors. _Or, okay, maybe it can. _

He unlocked and slid the door open cautiously, and there she was. She was unusually pale and there was something extremely uncertain in her posture, as though she could be about to collapse at any moment. And her eyes… she wouldn't look at him, but the dim glaze of despair in them was unmistakable.

"Buffy?" He said her name with a compassionate tenderness that would've startled her if she'd been aware enough to notice it.

But she wasn't. And she still wouldn't look up at him. "I… I need… I mean, I wanted to ask…" She paused, eyes fixed on the ground, body motionless. "I need a place to stay," she said finally, in a voice so low that he only just heard it.

"Not for long," she continued, hesitantly. "I won't be here long, and I wouldn't want… I don't even have the right to ask, not really, it's just… there's nowhere else I can go right now. I'm sorry," she added in a whisper. "There's just nowhere else."

---


	12. The Supermarket

**Author's Note:** Since a lot has been happening plot-wise in the past few chapters, I figured I could slow things down a bit with this one. Less action, more (BA) interaction. I appreciate all the feedback, especially since people seem be getting a lot more invested in the story than I'd expected (and, okay, I'm a sucker for compliments). I won't be able to go with all the suggestions, but I'm definitely considering some of them, like bringing the Big Three back.

Anyway, on with the chapter part of this chapter:

**12. The Supermarket**

Angel had offered her the use of the master bedroom, but she'd turned it down as firmly as she possibly could without being rude. He'd finally relented and carried her hastily-packed suitcase upstairs to the second largest bedroom. Like most of the rooms in the mansion, it was furnished and decently clean (the previous owner had only recently left it, and he'd done so in a rather suspicious hurry), and he was glad he hadn't had time to board up its windows yet. He had no desire to deny her the pleasure of sunlight; and especially because of, rather than despite, the fact that it was lost to him.

He realized that he would have been far too jealous of any other human houseguest to allow them to have what he couldn't, but the usual rules that dictated his behavior didn't apply where Buffy was concerned. And that worried him in more ways that one.

Because every once in a while, he'd catch himself looking at her and forgetting things. Like the fact that she was really only a child, while he was old enough to be her great-great-great-great-_great_-grandfather's father. And the fact that although she'd heard the story of what he used to be, he doubted very much that she'd actually understood the horrors that Angelus was capable of. And the fact that if she ever did understand (or, heaven forbid, witness) those horrors, she probably wouldn't hesitate to kill him.

But what was worse than forgetting all those highly important things was the fact that it felt _good _to forget about them. To just let go and allow himself to be caught up in her presence. She needed him, and it felt as good to be needed as it did to drift away from the truth of their unusual situation. So he drifted. And he let himself forget.

---

When he came downstairs, she was no longer sitting on a couch in front of the fireplace in the atrium, where he'd left her. A few moment's quiet searching revealed that she'd wandered into the courtyard, and was standing with her back to him, facing the fountain. It had obviously been dry for a long time; ivy circled its stone base and covered the faces of the cherubs sculpted into its sides.

"Why would anyone let it get like this?" she asked, apparently directing her question to the fountain itself.

Angel stayed where he was in the courtyard entryway. Something told him she wouldn't appreciate him moving too close. "Neglect, probably. Easier to keep a dry fountain than supply the water to keep it running."

"That's sad." She lifted her arm to her face and even from where he was standing, he could tell she was wiping away tears. "He could've just gotten a statue instead. I mean, that's basically what this is now, right? A statue."

He knew she didn't really care about the fountain. She was trying to put off the questions she thought he'd inevitably ask.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," he told her quietly. "Not until you're ready."

She laughed dispiritedly. "So, would 'never' work for you? Because right now, it seems like talking about it is the last thing I'd ever want to do."

His laugh was a faint echo of hers. "Believe me, I can wait. Time is the one thing I _do_ have."

"True," she said. "Avoid stakes and sunlight, and you'll probably even be around to see the world end." She turned her head slightly. "What does it feel like? Knowing that you'll live forever, I mean."

He shrugged. "Not good. Not bad. And I won't really live forever, I'll just live long enough to wish that I had died when Darla found me."

That made her finally turn all the way around to face him. "You _did _die."

"You know what I mean – she killed me, but I continued to exist. If I had _really_ died, I wouldn't have … done any of the things I did. I wouldn't be living with any of this remorse. If you can even call it 'living'."

She was surprised by the bitterness in his tone. It made her pity him. _Never thought I'd feel sorry for a vampire. _It also made her own problems seem oddly insignificant. _Okay, so I'm basically homeless, but being cursed with eternal remorse kind of makes homelessness seem easy as pie. Or cake. Or any other kind of warm baked thing._

To her shame, this thought was followed by an odd growling noise from the vicinity of her stomach. _That's what I get for going with the food-related metaphors. Next time it'll be 'easy as horseshoes', or something equally non-yummy. _

Angel's face took on that faintly amused look she had come to recognize. "I'm guessing you haven't eaten in a while."

"Not since dinner yesterday," she admitted awkwardly. "But it's not like I'm expecting you to be stocked up on Pop-Tarts or anything, what with that blood-only diet you crazy kids are all on these days." She smiled weakly. "Amazing what people will do to keep up that pale, gaunt, undead look."

"It's all the rage," he agreed. "I don't really recommend it, though." He paused, his expression becoming more troubled than amused. "And I do want to get food for you, but…"

"I brought money," she told him quickly. "So I got the paying part covered; you won't even have to worry about it."

"No, I was going to say, I don't know much about buying food these days. It's not like I've needed it in a while," he added wryly. "But money isn't a problem." He gestured towards the house. "Turns out Mr. Remington left something important behind when he fled the place."

"What, like his watch? And when you say 'fled', do you mean –"

"I mean he ran for his life and didn't look back." He smiled at the intense curiosity in her expression. "I'll tell you about it some time. And no, he didn't leave his watch. He left gold."

She was startled. _Who keeps gold in their house when there's a bank only like a mile away? _But that's not what she asked. What she asked was a far more important question: "Really? How much?"

"Enough to keep us stocked up on food – and blood – for a very long time," Angel said lightly. "And it definitely wasn't his to begin with, so I have no problem with spending it."

She grinned. "Undead _and _criminally rich. Next thing I know, Anne Rice will be writing a novel about you."

He grimaced. "Good point. Maybe I should turn it in."

"To who – the police?" She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I can just see that conversation happening." She adopted a deep voice. "'So, Mr … Angel, is it? You say you're a centuries-old vampire with a soul who just happened to come across this massive amount of gold that you've decided to willingly hand over to the government?'"

He laughed. It was silly and oddly sweet to hear this petite teenage girl mimicking a man's voice. "All right, all right. No turning it in."

She nodded approvingly. "Of course not. Why would you want to deprive yourself of all those Pop-Tarts?"

He gave her a furtive, curious look. "About those. What … are they, exactly?"

At first her eyes widened in surprise, and then she grinned. "Oh, you have _so _much to learn."

---

The only real supermarket in Sunnydale was open 24/7, and relatively easy to find, due largely to the fact that it was one of the only places in the town that was extremely well-lit at night. Luckily there weren't many people in town who bothered to do their shopping at night, so it was fairly empty when Buffy and Angel walked in.

Buffy made a grand sweeping motion with her arm as they entered. "So, here it is. The modern-day supermarket."

"It's… very bright." Angel, used to darkness and dim lighting, had to squint while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the harsh fluorescent lights in the store. But once they'd adjusted it felt as though he'd never be able to see enough of it all. He was amazed by the sheer size of the place. "All this space just to store food?"

"Not store it," Buffy corrected him blithely, "Sell it. It's all about the customers – as in, you and me. Once they run out of something, they order more. And it's not just food."

He gave her a quizzical look. She smiled and pulled out a trolley. "Here – you can do the pushing. I'll show you."

Angel got the hang of maneuvering the trolley pretty quickly, and soon they were making their way down the bread and cereal aisle. While Angel marveled over the variety of bread available (he was only familiar with two or three different kinds), Buffy spent a few moments intently surveying the cereal section before coming back to the trolley holding a pair of bright blue boxes.

"Here they are – Pop-Tarts. Like the Holy Grail of food, except easier to get hold of and way less legendary."

"They look like…" Words failed him. He couldn't think of anything he knew that resembled the pictures on the boxes.

"Big yum-filled squares of yum?"

He smiled. "If you say so."

"I _do _say so," she said firmly. "I say so with major enthusiasm. But you don't have to take my word for it."

By now they'd made it to the dairy section, and she was too busy trying to find single-portion ice cream tubs to notice that he was frowning. She figured that a working refrigerator wasn't part of the whole 'abandoned mansion' package, so getting an entire quart of ice cream was sadly out of the question – as was buying milk.

"Buffy – you know I can't try any of this, right?" He pointed into the trolley, which now contained quite a lot of food of the less-than-healthy variety. Buffy couldn't really see the point in buying things no one would want to eat, so she was avoiding the vegetable section.

"Well, I know you can't ... _eat _them eat them, but that doesn't mean you can't nibble them, right?"

He shook his head silently and her face fell. "Oh. So… no Pop-Tarts?" She thought about this for a long moment, and then she brightened a little. "All right, so we'll just have to swing by the butcher's on our way back and pick up the Pop-Tart equivalent of blood. I mean, there's gotta be one kind that's better than others."

He hesitated. "Otter. I think. I'm not sure; I only had it the one time and it might not be as good as I remember, but…"

"Otter it is, then," she said firmly, helping him steer the trolley towards the checkout counter. "Even if we have to catch one ourselves."

They ended up paying for the groceries with some of the money she'd brought with her when she left her mother's house, because there was no point trying to pay in gold. As soon as the sun set the next day, Angel was planning on selling it to a dealer outside of town in exchange for cash – but it wasn't the kind of plan he wanted to involve Buffy in. The type of dealers who were willing to do business with vampires were famously untrustworthy, and if anything went wrong he'd rather she wasn't there.

Holding two of their four paper grocery bags in her arms as they headed for the only butcher's shop in town, Buffy felt oddly lighthearted. It was less than twenty-four hours ago that her mother had basically accused her of being responsible for her father's death and then thrown her out of the house, but already it felt like a long time had passed since then. She could almost even believe that it was a distant and unimportant memory, or a bad dream.

And besides, there was no need to dwell on the past – because for once, she was entirely content with her present.

---


	13. The Rescue

**Author's Note:** I thought I'd be up to Buffy's first day at Sunnydale High by now, but that's going to have to wait until a later chapter (maybe 15 or 16). And in case this chapter didn't make it obvious enough, I'm a big Johnny Depp fan (but then, who isn't?). As usual, feedback equals a happy me.

**13. The Rescue**

They barely got back in time to avoid the sunrise. And, wonder of all wonders, they had actually managed to persuade the butcher into giving them otter's blood; he had spent half an hour strenuously denying the fact that he stocked it before finally giving in and letting them buy a few quarts. It became apparent to Buffy that the butcher probably had a decent-sized vampire clientele, and he thought he should save the otter's blood for them. (If he suspected that Angel might be one of them, he didn't let on).

"I mean, even the _butcher_ is doing side-deals with vamps. How Twilight Zone is that?" Buffy asked in disbelief, once they'd made it through the mansion's front doors and deposited the grocery bags in what was meant to be the kitchen.

Angel shrugged. "You can't really blame him. It's probably a choice between serving them and getting eaten by them."

Buffy grimaced. "Poor guy." Then she brightened. "But it's no biggie. I'll start patrolling as soon as the sun sets and play How Many Can You Dust. He'll be vamp-free in no time."

"It's a little strange that vampires would bother to cut deals with anybody," Angel said thoughtfully. "Let alone the butcher. They'd be more likely to just attack the place to get what they wanted."

"Point noted – but whether they're cutting deals with humans or not, every vamp dusts just as easily the next." She looked at Angel and blanched slightly. "Sorry. I didn't mean –"

"I know." He smiled to show her that he genuinely wasn't offended by the blunder. "But Buffy, don't underestimate these vampires. If they _have _formed some sort of group, they can be harder to tackle than usual."

"I'll be careful," she assured him. But the light, careless tone she said it in told him she wasn't worried at all.

It made him wonder just how much she'd experienced in the past to turn her from an average teenage girl into this fledgling Slayer who managed to be completely blasé about the kind of things that would frighten most girls to death. Sometimes literally. And before he could stop himself, the question had slipped out of his mouth: "Don't they ever frighten you?"

She was trying to get the foil wrapping off a pair of strawberry frosted Pop-Tarts. "Who? The vamps?" She shrugged. "Not really. After Lothos, they all seem like … bad imitations of something that's _meant _to be scary. The only thing that scares me about them is their outfits." She pretended to shudder. "Much with the outdated 80's look."

And he could tell that she was being honest, but it wasn't enough to make him feel any better about her plan to patrol the next night. Somehow, he would almost have preferred it if she were afraid. At least then there'd be less chance of her rushing into anything dangerous.

---

That night Buffy found, to her surprise, that it was quite easy to fall asleep in the unfamiliar second-floor guest room, but that probably had a lot to do with how tired she was and the fact that, unfamiliar or not, the bed was extremely comfortable. And there was something infinitely reassuring in the knowledge that Angel was right across the hall.

Angel – in direct contrast to his houseguest – was finding it difficult to fall asleep, even though he was exhausted and the sun was already rising. And amusingly enough, his sleep troubles were mainly due to the knowledge that Buffy was right across the hall: the more he focused on _not _thinking about her, the more Buffy-related thoughts seemed to gather in his mind and prevent him from sleeping.

---

Angel awoke some time around mid-afternoon and found Buffy sitting in the kitchen, using a serrated-edged bread knife to sharpen a thick wooden stick that looked vaguely familiar. "Is that a picket from the garden fence?"

"_Was _a picket from the garden fence," Buffy corrected him cheerfully. "Now it's the reincarnation of Mr. Pointy."

Angel took a mug from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with lukewarm otter's blood from a plastic quart bag. "Is that all you're bringing on patrol?"

"It's all I need. Are you coming along for the show?"

Angel shook his head. "I have business to take care of outside of town. I'll be back before sunrise," he added, seeing the look on her face. "It won't take long."

She shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance. "All right, but you'll be missing out on all that healthy fighting-evil-in-the-name-of-good fun."

He smiled. "Somehow, I think I'll get over it." He sipped at the blood and the smile widened. "Wow. My memory wasn't playing tricks on me after all."

"See? Another good reason for patrolling tonight. If the butcher isn't slipping otter's blood to other vamps, there'll be more for you." She finished sharpening the stake. It was _definitely _pointy enough now.

"So all this is for the noble cause of supplying me with luxury-standard blood?"

"Yup. My itching need to vent a little angsty frustration on some ugly bad guys has _nothing _to do with it."

He looked at her searchingly over the rim of his mug. "Instead of venting, you could try –"

"Don't say 'talking about it', please." She stood up and balanced the stake in one hand, getting a feel of its weight and contours. "Discussing my mother-daughter issues is _so_ not on the menu for tonight."

He didn't want to upset her, but it had to be said. "Maybe not with me, but your mother might be willing to listen to –"

"No, Angel." She exhaled slowly. _Don't blow up at him. He's just trying to help. _"You don't get it. You think that I – I ran away, or something." He hadn't said it, but that's what Buffy would've assumed if she'd been in his place. "But I didn't. I didn't walk out, she _kicked _me out. And she made it clear that she doesn't want me coming back."

If Angel was surprised, he didn't show it. "People say a lot of things they don't mean. Especially to their children." As he spoke, a dozen memories of his father recurred to him, but he didn't want this conversation to be about him. Someday soon he'd tell her the story of his relationship with his father, but not today.

"Oh no, she definitely meant it. I've never heard my mom sound like that before. So…" She faltered. "Harsh. Like she was talking to a stranger – or someone she really hated."

"She doesn't hate you," Angel said quickly. He couldn't know that for certain, but he was pretty sure it was true.

Buffy looked down awkwardly at the floor. "I wouldn't blame her if she did." And without being prompted, she told him, in a voice that she struggled to keep steady, about the horrible scene that had taken place with her mother and Dawn on the day she got thrown out of the house. She told him that she'd lied to them about going to LA, and about meeting him. "So it's not just that she was angry. She thinks I'm a liar, and a – a murderer." She had to force herself to say that last word.

He was silent for a long moment. _Insulting her mother's judgment isn't going to make _her_ feel any better. Say something positive. _"She'll realize the truth eventually. And if she doesn't…" he shrugged, unsure of how to finish the sentence. _You don't need her. You have me. _"It'll work out somehow."

"Yeah." Her smile was entirely fake, but she couldn't dredge up enough happiness for a real one. "It will."

---

It felt good to be out in the crisp early-autumn night air, with her stake stowed discreetly in the pocket of her calf-length belted jacket and her senses on high alert for even the slightest sign of activity. She was only about three blocks away from the butcher's shop, but the entire walk from – and through – Arguyle cemetery had been surprisingly uneventful. She'd come across a few pedestrians and the odd squirrel, but that was it. No demon encounters so far.

And then, just as she was turning the corner on Robson Avenue, she heard a faint but unmistakable scream. The sound was half-snatched by the wind and for a moment she hesitated, wondering whether it couldn't have been the result of her own imagination. But then the scream was repeated and she couldn't afford to have any doubts.

Thankfully, her legs didn't wait for her mind to tell them to move. They carried her swiftly across the street and into Shady Hill cemetery; it wasn't the nearest one to her position, but it definitely contained the source of the scream – she tracked it to a small stone mausoleum with a heavy wooden door. _A mausoleum. Great. Why do people always have to be attacked in mausoleums? Why can't they be attacked in, say, a nice brightly lit Neiman Marcus outlet? _

She didn't bother trying to push the door open – she knew it would be locked –and instead opted for kicking it in. Before she'd even stepped through the doorway she knew that there were three vampires and one human being inside. Now she saw that two of the vampires were holding the girl's arms (of course, she thought, it _had _to be a girl) while the third was bending over her neck. All three vampires turned at the sound of the door bursting open.

Buffy gave them a mock-apologetic smile. "Oops. Guess I should've knocked first, huh?"

They didn't hesitate to attack her, but their movements were clumsy by vampire standards and the struggle was extremely brief. She took out Skinhead Vamp (she had a habit of mentally labeling her opponents as a way of keeping track) with a quick, easy staking through the heart. Short Vamp was stupid enough to come within arm's range, and she had him in a headlock before he even understood what was going on. Snapping his neck didn't take long.

The third vampire was female, and she seemed to be just a little bit more skilled at hand-to-hand combat than the others; Buffy had to block several swift punches before getting in a punch of her own, which she followed up with a kick that brought the vampire flat on her back on the mausoleum floor.

Buffy staked her without hesitation and stepped back just before the body exploded into dust. She didn't want any of it getting on her new suede ankle boots. _And with any luck, those were three of the vampires that have been shaking down the butcher's. So, mission accomplished. _

"You – you saved me. Those things were going to…" The girl's voice faltered. Buffy turned to see that she was trembling violently, and that her cheeks were tear-stained. "They could have killed me. You saved my _life._"

Buffy smiled. "You're not going to do that whole Native American thing of following me around until you can save my life in return, are you? Because I've gotta say, that all sounds just a little too stalker-y to me."

"Oh, no," the girl said quickly. "I mean yes. I mean…" The girl took a deep breath and tried again. "Yeah, it sounds kinda creepy to me too, and no, I won't do it." She smiled. "But thank you so, _so _much for saving me."

"No problem. It's what every stake-carrying Good Samaritan would've done." By now they had walked out of the mausoleum and were making their way out of Shady Hill.

"What was wrong with those people, anyways?" As the girl turned to look at her, the street lights outside of the cemetery allowed Buffy to see the distinctly red tint to her shoulder-length straight hair.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Let's just say they weren't themselves anymore." She figured she might as well introduce herself and added, "I'm Buffy Summers, by the way. Unlikely hero and life-saver."

The girl smiled. "Willow Rosenberg. Um, occasional victim and … weirdo bait."

Buffy grinned. "Nice one. Usually I just get the wigged-out look, or maybe one of those bland replies that people come up with just to get rid of you. No one appreciates a good one-liner anymore."

Having gotten over most of the shock of her strange ordeal, Willow was actually able to laugh. "Yeah, I think it went out of style right around the time sitcoms started airing."

"That would explain _so _much." Buffy realized that this was the first time, post-Hemery, that she'd had a conversation a normal girl her own age (Fred, being a demon hunter, didn't really count). She was amazed that Willow hadn't run off like most of the people she saved from vampire attacks – people who were, now that she thought of it, extremely ungrateful.

"So do you, um, do this kind of thing a lot? You know, the…" Willow made a staking motion with her hand, "And then they go 'poof', with the dust and everything?"

"Actually, they _are _the dust. It's called staking," Buffy explained. "And I guess I do it a lot. It's kind of my job. Except I don't get paid, and I still have to go to school."

"Really? Which school? 'Cause, you know, if you're going to Sunnydale High I could show you around. But only if you want to," she added quickly. "I understand if you don't. And that's if you're even going to Sunnydale High, which you haven't said that you are, and – I'll just shut up now."

_I guess babbling isn't just a me-thing. It's apparently also a Willow-thing. Yaay. _"Well, it's pretty much Sunnydale High or nothing, so I'll probably be going there. How did you know I'm not already a student?"

Willow smiled. "I've lived here my entire life. It's pretty easy to tell the newcomers from everyone else. Besides, I've never seen you at school here before."

Buffy nodded. "Elementary, my dear Watson," she quoted under her breath. She hadn't really meant to; the line just popped into her head.

"You know, he never really said that." Willow turned to her and smiled hesitantly, as though checking to see if Buffy would be interested. Buffy smiled back encouragingly. "Holmes, I mean.That line isn't in any of the books. It's from a movie."

Buffy had never read any of the Sherlock Holmes books and so she wasn't a particularly big fan, but she would rather have died than let Willow think she was bored with the conversation. "Yeah? So who played Holmes?"

"Basil Rathbone." Willow saw the puzzled look on Buffy's face and smiled. "You wouldn't know him. It's a really old movie - from the 30's, I think."

"About time they did a remake, then," Buffy said lightly. "Johnny Depp could totally play Holmes."

Willow agreed fervently. "Johnny Depp could play _anything_."

"Of course he could. With that hair –"

"And that voice–"

"And those _eyes_!" they said in unison. Then they looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"They've got _Don Juan DeMarco_ at the video store," Willow said eventually. She avoided looking directly at Buffy and was suddenly overcome with shyness. "And _What's Eating Gilbert Grape. _We – we could do a Johnny movie marathon some time. Maybe." She tried not to sound too hopeful. She'd been rejected in her efforts to make friends before, and she wasn't exactly dying to repeat the experience.

But when Willow glanced up, she saw that Buffy's smile was about as wide as it could possibly get.

"That," she said honestly, "would be great."

---

Angel knew he shouldn't be there. He shouldn't even have gone anywhere near that particular street. He should've just made his way directly from the demon-friendly dealer shop out on Route 61 to the mansion. He'd done what he'd set out to do – and luckily, selling some of the gold for cash had turned out to be a lot more hassle-free than he'd expected – so there was no reason for him to do anything other than walk back to his new home and wait for Buffy to come in from her patrol.

But somehow he hadn't been able to stop himself from taking a detour to Revello Drive, and now he found himself standing outside the Summers residence, watching as Joyce Summers carried a pair of black plastic bags to the garbage cans on the sidewalk in front of the house.

He knew better than to speak to her, and yet he heard his own voice saying "Excuse me – Joyce?"

She looked up at him, clearly startled. "Yes?"

"I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment." He kept his tone deliberately casual. "It's about your daughter."

---


	14. The Confession

**Author's Note:** It's been a long, long time coming, but here it is: Chapter 14. There's definitely going to be a Chapter 15, but after that I'm not sure whether to wrap up and start a sequel, or continue this fic. Any feedback on that (or anything else for that matter :-P) would be welcome.

**14. The Confession**

Joyce Summers was extremely suspicious, and more than a little wary, of the strange man who'd approached her in the middle of the night to ask about her daughter. But her instincts told her that there was no need to worry yet; they were out on a brightly lit sidewalk, and the neighbors could see them clearly enough from their windows.

"How do you know Dawn?" she asked, trying to keep her tone politely neutral.

"Not Dawn. Buffy."

Angel watched Joyce carefully; there was no obvious reaction to the mention of her eldest daughter's name, but the slight narrowing of her eyes and the set of her jaw told him more about her feelings than she was aware. Over two centuries of observing human behavior had taught him to recognize anger and resentment when he saw it.

"I don't want to hear anything about Buffy," Joyce told him coldly.

"Don't you?" He tilted his head to look at her, dark eyes thoughtful. "Why is that? Because you don't care, or because you care so much it would hurt to hear that she's doing well without you?"

He hadn't meant to say that. It sounded hostile. _Keep calm, or this is going to end badly. _"You need to speak with your daughter, Mrs. Summers."

She laughed bitterly. "This is wonderful. _You_ want me to speak with my daughter. Let me tell you something, whoever the hell you are – she is _not_ my daughter. The girl who burned down two buildings, ran away, lied to everyone she loves and…" her voice choked with emotion and she paused before going on, "and _killed_ Hank… is not my daughter." She tilted her chin up and gave Angel a fierce, resolute glare. "And I don't want to have anything to do with her. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Oh, yes. It's perfectly clear." Angel's voice was expressionless, but only because he was reigning his anger in tightly to prevent himself from harming her. Her words were so indifferent, so careless, and they infuriated him beyond anything he'd expected to feel. "You've obviously convinced yourself that you no longer love her. Which is sad enough, I suppose, but not as sad as the fact that you're using a string of accusations as an excuse for throwing her out. She's done nothing wrong. She wasn't involved in your husband's death. You'd know that if you'd bothered to listen to her."

He turned to walk away, but then stopped himself and faced her again. "And by the way, if you think she's suffering because she's not with you, then you're sorely mistaken. She's happy, and she's doing well. She's loved."

"By you?" Joyce asked, her voice dripping with scorn. "A man she's only just met?"

"Yes," Angel said simply. "By me. A man she's only just met, who loves her more and better than her own mother was ever able to, or ever will. You've lost her," he added quietly. "I pity you for that. But your loss, Mrs. Summers, is my gain."

And even though the demon inside him was roaring with fury, he bowed to her with the fluid grace of a true gentleman. "Good night, Joyce."

As she watched him walk away, Joyce stood completely motionless, unable to move while a wave of regret flooded through her. It eventually passed, leaving her as angry and resentful as ever, and just as determined never to set eyes on Buffy again.

But later that night, in the privacy of her bedroom in the home she shared with her "only" daughter, Joyce Summers cried herself to sleep.

---

"Now, be honest." In one hand Buffy held a lacy white crop-top, and in the other a deep purple button-up blouse. She brought the crop-top up below her chin. "This one says 'Hi, I'm fun and flirty and not afraid to expose my bellybutton to the view of the general public', but it's also got a major Madonna vibe going on and I'm not too sure I wanna go there, what with that whole skanky much-leather look she's got going on these days."

She held up the blouse instead. "On the other hand, this one's got 'sophisticated' written all over it, but unless I dress it down a little I'm in danger of coming off as a serious planning-to-run-for-class-president prep, and God knows it's going to be hard enough to make friends already without being mistaken for a power-hungry egghead."

When there was no response, she tapped her foot impatiently. "So? What do you think? And remember, my future as a Sunnydale High student could be entirely decided by what I wear on my first day. Don't give me that look," she added a moment later, "I know what I'm talking about here. I ruined the social prospects of a lot of hopeful newcomers in my Hemery days – it was make or break, and usually break, based on whether or not I liked their outfits."

Angel felt as though his features had taken on a life of their own. He was completely unable to banish the amused smile that had been lingering on his face ever since he awoke at sunset to find Buffy waiting outside his bedroom door. She'd taken his hand, dragged him into the living room and pushed him firmly onto the plush suede sofa she'd talked him into buying a few days earlier. After commanding him to stay where he was, she'd disappeared upstairs and returned to model several outfit choices which eventually came down to a pair of black denim jeans and a choice of the current two tops.

After his sobering conversation with Joyce the night before, it felt especially good to be spending time with her.

In the interest of keeping Buffy happy, he pretended to see a significant difference between all of the different items of clothing she showed him, when in fact, they all looked fairly similar to him.

Or more accurately put, he thought she would look as breathtakingly beautiful as she usually did no matter what she wore. But he couldn't tell her that.

He compromised by saying, "They both look nice."

Apparently, this was a mistake. "Nice? _Nice? _Angel, come on. I need an honest second opinion, and yours would be especially useful."

He knew he shouldn't ask, but he did anyway. "Why?"

She sighed. "Because you're a _guy_. I mean, a girl could tell another girl something looks nice on her when really it makes her seem ten pounds heavier because she secretly _wants _that other girl to look bad so she'll look good in comparison. But a guy would never do that. Get it?"

His smile widened into one of his extremely rare grins, taking his face to a whole new level of handsome. "Not really."

She rolled her eyes in mock frustration. "Amazing. 240 years of existence, and you're still socially clueless."

"And style-free," he added solemnly. At her slightly surprised expression, he reminded her that she'd called him that last night.

"Yeah," she agreed. "That too."

---

"Angel?"

"Hmm?"

"What about the parent-teacher meetings?"

"The what?"

"You know." Buffy stepped back neatly from the body of the vampire she'd just driven her stake into, avoiding the sudden shower of dust that fell almost imperceptibly onto the damp grass of Shady Hill cemetery. "Parent-teacher meetings. Where parents get dragged in to the school so that the teachers can tell them just how badly their kids are doing in Calculus or whatever. What are we going to do about those?"

He backhanded the vampire he was fighting across the face and tried hard to focus on what she was saying. "What do you want to do about them?"

She thought about this while she went into an effortless roll-and-tuck over the grass to avoid the attack of a vampire who'd somehow managed to arm himself with a crowbar. A roundhouse kick to the ankles brought him down swiftly. "I don't know. Ignore them, I guess."

"Then that's what we'll do." Angel rubbed his knuckles to dispel the soreness that had followed his recent vicious right jab to another vampire's jaw.

"Really? Just like that?" She tilted her head slightly as she looked at him, completely ignoring the vampire who was struggling to get up from beneath her booted heel, which was planted firmly on his chest.

"You said it's what you wanted."

"And it is, but – I mean, this sounds silly, but won't we get in trouble?"

He looked pointedly at the vampire writhing on the ground beneath her boot. "Buffy, I've seen you take out four vampires tonight without breaking a sweat. Somehow, I think we'll be able to handle the disapproval of one high school principle."

She sank Mr. Pointy into the chest of the vampire, bringing an abrupt end to his struggles, and straightened up to give Angel a relieved smile. "Point noted."

As they walked towards the mansion, Buffy was surprised to hear Angel whistling. It was faint, nearly inaudible, but pleasingly melodic. "What tune is that?"

His smile as he looked down at her was at least as sad as it was sincere. "I can't remember. I think I might've heard it in Galway, but I can't be sure."

"And here I was, thinking you living dead types all had perfect memories."

He shrugged. "Even vampires can forget things, if enough time passes."

"Will you forget me?"

She'd blurted it out before she could stop herself. And then suddenly there was nothing to do but continue. "I mean, a hundred, two hundred years from now, will you still remember my face or will I just be a blurry patch like the faces of those people on TV who don't want to be recognized?"

He stopped abruptly and turned in her direction. For a long moment he simply stood there, his body unnervingly close to hers, his dark eyes staring down into her green ones.

He was silent for so long that she began to feel a little nervous. "Angel?"

He sighed. "No, Buffy, I won't forget you." He knew he should stop there. The intensity in his gaze was already making her nervous, and she wasn't ready to hear what he was thinking. It was too soon.

But something kept him going and forced him to say, for once, what he was feeling rather than what he thought she should hear.

"I won't be able to forget you. You – your face, your eyes, your scent, that gorgeous little smile you wear when you're teasing me – will stay with me until the end of my days." His voice was pitched very low, but she heard every word. "And I hope that isn't too long after the end of yours, because I can't bear to remember how pointless my life was before I met you."

_All right, now stop. Just stop. _But he couldn't. "I love you," he continued, his voice unsteady. "I'm in love with you. And maybe that's wrong – no, actually, it _is_ wrong. Very wrong. I'm old enough to be your ancestor and not nearly good enough to deserve you. I keep telling myself that, hoping that it'll make me stop wanting you, but all it does is make me feel guilty about wanting you. And after a hundred years of it, guilt doesn't really phase me." He offered up the shadow of a smile, anxious over her response and yet relieved that he'd finally managed to tell her the truth about his feelings.

She had no idea how to respond. Her brain had gone into overdrive, analyzing his tone and the expression in his eyes, trying to operate rationally even though her heart was thundering in her chest and she suddenly found it difficult to breathe. He was so very close to her now; she couldn't figure out if he'd moved or she had, but it didn't seem to matter as much as the fact that there was barely two inches of space between them.

"I should … say something, shouldn't I?" she whispered, mesmerized by the proximity of his mouth to hers. "I should answer you."

He shook his head almost imperceptibly and leaned even closer. "You don't have to."

"I want to," she said, struggling to focus on speaking even though the rest of her was far more interested in touching him. "I want…"

"Yes?" his voice was a husky whisper, almost inaudible.

Without even noticing, she stood up on her toes to bring herself closer to him. "You," she managed to whisper, a millisecond before he leaned down to kiss her.

He brushed his lips over hers with heartbreaking tenderness before allowing himself to explore her mouth. He kissed her bottom lip, flavored exquisitely by her raspberry lipbalm, and then her upper lip with its sweet Cupid's bow, before slipping his tongue gently between them. He had wanted to move even slower, for fear of making her uncomfortable, but he was finding it difficult to control himself. And she didn't mind at all.

Her hands roamed caressingly up his chest before coming to rest on his shoulders, where she clung to him as the kiss deepened. She could barely breathe; every nerve in her body seemed to have caught fire and she was sure her heart would burst at any moment. But she could, and did, think – at least at first.

_I can't believe this. I'm kissing Angel! And oh, God, it's amazing. He's amazing. I love him. I'm such a grade-A moron for not realizing sooner. We could've been doing this weeks ago. That's a lot of potential make-out time wasted. I really should – _

At that point Angel brought one of his hands to the small of her back, pushing her body up against his, while the other buried itself in her hair, cradling the back of her head. And all thoughts stopped completely.

Eventually – after a long, long interval where nothing seemed to exist except the two of them – they pulled apart from each other, breathless and almost deliriously happy. Although they'd stopped kissing, Angel's arms were still wrapped very firmly around Buffy's waist. She'd never seen as much joy in his expression as she did while he was looking down at her. "That was…" he paused, searching for words. But he couldn't think of anything to appropriately describe what he'd just experienced.

She leaned in to rest her head against his chest, hiding a smile. "Yes," she said, teasing him. "I completely agree. It _was._"

He laughed and kissed the top of her head. "I'm glad that a single kiss can't rob me of speech any more. That would be embarrassing."

"I think it's sweet," she told him. "Although it might be kind of a waste of two hundred year's worth of kissing experience."

He shook his head. "There's never been anything like this for me before. Or anyone like you," he added lovingly.

The cynic in her wanted to doubt him, but the rest of her was much too in love with him to disbelieve anything he said. "Right back at you. And Angel?"

"Mmm?" He bent down to kiss her neck. For the briefest of moments she tensed, but her Slayer instincts subsided quickly and she let him place a light trail of kisses along the curve of her neck, trusting him completely.

His kisses resulted in a riot of pleasurable sensations, and it took a while for Buffy to rearrange her thoughts long enough to whisper the words she'd been meaning to say ever since he'd confessed his feelings.

"I love you too."

---

**Author's Note:** I agonized over the last part of this chapter for ages, and I'm afraid I might have rushed it (or messed it up completely, depending on just how uncritical I've been), but I figured that after thirteen chapters it was about time for a some B/A action.

Anyways, reviews appreciated.


	15. The Kitchen

**Author's Note:** First of all, I sincerely appreciate all the reviews.

No, wait, that wasn't honest enough. I love every single person who reviewed, Arobow especially, and if I ever meet any of you in person I will hug you. (Unless you smell funny, in which case I'll just wave enthusiastically.)

Ahem. Secondly, I'm going to keep this fic going rather than start on a sequel, because there are a lot of issues that still need to be resolved (who set the fire, who called Joyce, what happened to the Big Three and whether or not Ripper got the Gem back, among others) and I think it would be better to continue the storyline in the same fic.

And third, although I was planning to leave Cordelia in LA as Wesley's secretary, I can't imagine Sunnydale High without its Queen C, so as far as anyone needs to be concerned she was only working at the Council building as a summer job and is actually a high school student. :-P

Also, any typos/mistakes will be fixed when (and if) I notice them, and reviews equals huggage. :-)

**15. The Kitchen**

"So, are we talking uber-harsh or wannabe bitchy? There's a big difference." Buffy cradled her cell phone (a remnant from her days of living in LA with her parents) against her ear using her shoulder, leaving both hands free to explore the kitchen cupboards.

On the other end of the line, Willow Rosenberg sat at her desk, supposedly studying out of the Biology textbook spread out in front of her. She'd actually learned all the information by heart a week ago, and had seized the opportunity when her mother told her to go upstairs and study to call Buffy.

She'd been more than a little nervous about it (first phone calls between not-quite-friends can be incredibly awkward, as any teenage girl knows) but the conversation had been running non-stop for the past fifteen minutes and wasn't showing any signs of going into uncomfortably-long-pauses-and-throat-clearing territory.

Willow was distracted from answering Buffy directly by the distinct sounds of rummaging she heard in the background. "What are you doing?" she asked curiously.

"Foraging," Buffy told her. "So far I've collected some blueberry Pop Tarts, half a bag of Cheetos and a can of Dr. Pepper, but there's still an empty space in my stomach where at least one Mallomar should go. I could've sworn I put the box up in the fridge a few days ago, but I can't find it now."

"Um, Buffy? You've already had dinner, right?"

"This _is _dinner," Buffy admitted. "Well, sort of."

"But…" Willow knew she was about to sound like a complete dork, but she couldn't help herself. "It doesn't sound very healthy. I mean, none of that stuff is real food."

"What are you talking about? All right, it might be fake food, but it's chock-full of carbohydrate-y goodness. I get all the flavor I want, with none of that pesky nutritional value. It's yummy _and_ convenient." Buffy paused. "Am I being paranoid, or did I just sound like someone on the home shopping channel?"

Willow giggled. "You're not paranoid. I was starting to think you were about to sell me your Mallomars at the bargain price of nine ninety-nine."

"Offer valid for one hour only," Buffy said cheerfully. "Act now and I'll throw in a set of Ginsu knives."

"Nah, I've already got a bunch of those from all my _other_ home shopping channel sprees."

"Willow, I think you might have a problem," Buffy told her seriously. "I mean, I don't _want_ to call you a home-shopping-addict, but somebody has to say it."

"Yes," Willow agreed sadly. "I'm rehab-bound and no mistake."

Buffy laughed. "So anyway, what were we talking about before we got started on the subject of fake food?"

Willow paused, trying to remember. When she did, she grimaced. "Cordelia."

"Oh, right." Unseen by Willow, Buffy made the exact same grimace. "I still can't believe she goes to Sunnydale High. I mean, when I saw her in LA she looked more like twenty-six than sixteen." Buffy admitted this reluctantly, since it was a compliment of sorts.

She'd been surprised to find the name Cordelia familiar when Willow first mentioned it. It had taken her a while to remember the receptionist she'd met during the summer at the Watcher's Council building, and when she did she'd been even more surprised to find out that she was the same girl who'd apparently spent the past year ruling Sunnydale High with an iron fist and tormenting the less-than-popular students, including Willow.

"That's just Cordelia," Willow said, with a hint of wistfulness. "She's always seemed older than the rest of us."

"Okay, so I've got her pinned in my mental people directory as the queen bee. Anyone else I need to know about?"

---

Angel woke as the last remnants of sunlight were fading, and for a long moment he lay still, staring up at the blank ceiling. Slowly, the delicious realization that Buffy's scent was still clinging to his skin crept up on him. Scenes from the night before recurred to him with vivid clarity, and he remembered kissing her in the darkened second-floor hallway as they said good night. The urge to gather her up in his arms and carry her into his bedroom had eventually become so strong that he'd had to tear himself away from her, breaking the kiss a lot sooner than they both would've liked.

She wasn't ready for him to make love to her yet. He knew that. But a stormy battle was raging between what he knew and what he wanted, and part of him was afraid of the outcome. He loved her too much to hurt her, but it was becoming apparent that he also loved her too much to keep his hands, or his lips, off her for very long. And that was a problem.

_She's sixteen, _he reminded himself sternly as he finally slipped out of bed and got dressed. _Sixteen. She needs time. _The noble side of him agreed completely, while the less-than-noble side – the legacy of his reckless human self – remained utterly unconvinced. It reminded him that he'd had no hesitations whatsoever about bedding girls Buffy's age in the past.

_I was twenty-four then, not two hundred and forty, _Angel countered silently. _And none of those girls were her. _

He made his way downstairs with as much noise as a shadow makes when it moves, following the sound of her voice to the kitchen. She had her back turned to the door and he stood in the doorway, watching her. He took in the faint gleam of her golden hair underneath the ceiling lights, the outline of her slender back and the slight tilt of her head as she spoke with a sense of possessiveness and loving pride that was entirely new to him.

She put her cell phone down and spoke without turning around. "You know, you should really practice your stealth skills. I _so _knew you were there." When she did turn, she was wearing a smile that lit up her entire face.

Angel resisted the urge to embrace her and stayed where he was, smiling. "Does that mean I'm off patrol duty?"

"Yup," she agreed. "No more fighting things of the bad until you learn to sneak up on people like a true professional."

He gestured towards the phone. "Who was that?"

"Willow, calling to give me the 411 on pretty much every person at Sunnydale High. Including the principle." Buffy pretended to shudder. "_Major_ slime-ball, even going by the usual high school faculty standards."

Angel smiled faintly. "411?"

"You know – information," Buffy said, as though it were obvious. "Honestly, Angel, you need to keep up with the current lingo. You don't look old enough to be a clueless remnant of a past generation."

"I _am_ a clueless remnant of a past generation," he pointed out wryly. "And youthful appearance aside, your grandparents probably know more about the current lingo than I do."

"Ew." Buffy's nose wrinkled. "I'd rather not mentally link you to my grandparents, thanks. The fact that they're actually much younger than you is way too disturbing to dwell on."

"But not disturbing enough to stop you from being with me," he pointed out teasingly.

"Yeah, well. What can I say? I'm a sucker for undead brunettes." She smiled again and he moved forward to wrap his arms around her, unable to resist the appeal of that beautiful smile a second time.

She relaxed into his embrace, sighing contentedly. "I can't believe it took you five minutes to hug me. What were you waiting for?"

"I could ask you the same question," he said. And then he dipped his head to kiss her, their mouths meeting in a slow, loving dance of lips and teeth and tongues.

Angel buried his hands in the silky mass of her hair, holding her head gently in place as they kissed. He loved her hair. He loved the way it felt between his fingers; it was a different kind of softness from the yielding softness of her lips, and yet entirely similar.

As the kiss progressed Buffy's hands wandered along his back and shoulders, learning the shape of the muscles that lay beneath the skin. But the barrier of his shirt kept her from feeling the texture of that skin, and it frustrated her. Without pausing to think about it or break the contact between their mouths, she slipped her hands underneath his shirt.

He didn't try to stop her as she explored the tautness of his abdomen before her hands moved upwards, with tantalizing slowness, to his chest. When her palms slid across his nipples he groaned with pleasure and tightened his hold on her. The kiss became passionate, an expression of mounting desire rather than affection, as though he were drowning and she was his oxygen.

They were both breathing heavily by the time her hands snaked downwards, finding their way to his belt, but before she could reach for the buckle he covered her hands with his, stopping her. She looked up at him questioningly, her eyes dark with desire. "I thought you wanted…?"

"I do." He raised a hand to stroke her flushed cheek. "Believe me, I do. I'm just not sure that you do, or should. Yet." He glanced around. "And besides, I don't want the first time we make love to be in this kitchen."

She looked offended. "What's wrong with our kitchen?"

His face softened into a smile, but he didn't respond. "What?" she prompted.

"_Our_ kitchen," he repeated softly. "I like the sound of that."

"It does have a nice ring to it," she agreed. "Very normal-couple-y. We should maybe give ourselves normal couple names just to go with it. Like … Frank and Emma, or Mary and Joe. Or, no, I've got it – Bonny and Clyde." She grinned at him. "You be Bonny, and I'll be Clyde."

Angel raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't Clyde a man?"

"Yeah, but he was _so_ much cooler than she was. And clearly, I've got all the cool in this relationship."

He laughed. "I'm not arguing with that." The word _relationship_ was music to his ears, as good to hear as _our_s had been. He loved anything that reminded him that they were a couple.

She caught sight of the time on the kitchen clock and sighed. "So, we should probably be doing some patrolling right about now."

"Oh no," he said, grinning. "_You_ should be doing some patrolling. I still need to practice my stealth skills."

She smacked him lightly on the shoulder and he caught her wrist in one hand, using it to pull her closer. He bent to press his lips to her forehead and cheeks. He then placed his hands lightly on her hips and kissed his way to the curve of her neck, loving the little gasp this elicited from her and the way her eyes closed as she reveled in his touch.

Predictably, they had both soon forgotten all about going on patrol.

---

The next morning, Buffy found herself thanking her lucky stars for the fourth time that the mansion was within walking distance of Sunnydale High School. It was a bright, balmy day, and while the idea of walking past a graveyard wasn't very appealing in itself, Arguyle cemetery was actually quite beautiful in the daylight, with its well-kept grass and stately oak trees.

When she'd realized that it was going to be a fairly warm day she'd decided to wear her lacy white crop-top; she'd swept her hair into an elegant French twist, chosen a minimal amount of makeup and opted for a pair of white sneakers instead of heels. _Comfortable, but cute. _

_And besides, I totally don't need to add tripping and falling flat on my face to my already depressingly long list of things to worry about._

But contrary to her expectations, she wasn't really very worried. Or depressed. Her skin was still humming with delight from her most recent make-out session with Angel, and her mind seemed to be set on permanent flashback mode: every few seconds she'd think about his smile, or the expression in his eyes when he looked at her, or the way his fingertips felt against her skin. And she missed him. _Which is actually kind of sad, considering that it's only been a few hours since I last saw him._

She'd surprised herself last night; she'd been completely willing to have sex with him right then and there in the kitchen, but looking back she knew he'd been right. She wasn't ready yet. Now that she was calm enough to think about it rationally, the mere thought of Angel seeing her naked terrified her. _I mean, okay, slayage keeps me in decent shape, but I'm no Pamela Anderson. _And the thought of seeing him naked, though enticing, was equally terrifying. She'd never actually been anywhere near a naked man before.

She was worried that he wouldn't find her sexy enough. _Or maybe I'll just be really bad at it, _she thought, grimacing. _I mean, it's not like I've had any experience, while he's been with God knows how many women. What if he compares me to them? And what if they were all hotter than me? _

Not to mention the fact that she still wasn't a hundred percent clear on the logistics of it all. _Basics aside, am I supposed to be touching him while it happens, or am I just supposed to lie there? And would it be weird if I wasn't making a bunch of sexy noises and going on about how gorgeous he is? He _is _gorgeous, but what if I just don't feel like talking? _

_Or, oh God, what if I _do_ feel like talking but he doesn't, so I just end up blabbing and getting no response? That would be so embarrassing. He'd probably think I was annoying and maybe even reconsider this whole being-a-couple thing. _

She took a deep breath. _Okay, calm down. There's no need to freak out. And even if there is, this is not the time. _

She had reached the Sunnydale High building and was making her way slowly up to the main entrance, trying to attract as little attention to herself as possible. She had reigned supreme at Hemery, but here she was a stranger, a new girl, and she knew better than to think she could just waltz in and own the school. She'd be better off lying low until she'd figured out what she was dealing with.

_Then_ she could get started on a popularity strategy. _Because, let's face it, being popular is fun. And I don't want to give it up. This whole Slayer thing doesn't necessarily have to get in the way of my social life, does it?_

---

"Buffy!" Willow was waiting for her in the hall when Buffy came out from the secretary's office, where she'd just finished registering as a transfer student (she wrote down her address as The Mansion On Arguyle Street). Today Willow wore her hair loose around her shoulders, and her megawatt smile made it clear that at least one person at Sunnydale High was happy to see the new girl.

Buffy began to make her way over to Willow quickly, but she slowed down when she realized that the redhead wasn't alone. _No need to panic. I'm good at meeting new people. Mostly. _And as she reached them, she realized that Willow had already told her about the two guys she was with. _Which makes me just a smidgen less nervous._

"Buffy, this is Xander Harris and Jesse McNally," Willow said pleasantly. "Guys, this is Buffy Summers. She just moved here from LA."

"Hi." Jesse smiled and shook Buffy's hand casually, while Xander merely stared at her, slack-jawed with astonishment. _Sweet Taco Bell Gordita, this girl is hot!_

When Buffy turned to smile at Xander, he continued to stare at her, unable to make himself move or speak.

Jesse elbowed him sharply in the ribs. "Dude, can't you hide the fact that you're retarded until _after_ she decides to hang out with us?"

Buffy laughed, giving Xander time to recover. "Don't worry. The fact that you hang out with Willow pretty much already cinched it for me. Willow's retarded friends are _my_ retarded friends."

Willow visibly glowed with pride. She was glad that Buffy didn't seem to want to back out of their budding friendship, although she wouldn't have blamed her if she did. "Xander isn't really retarded," she said, trying to save him from further embarrassment.

"I don't know, Will," Jesse said skeptically. "I won't believe that he isn't until I see some IQ test results to prove it."

Xander managed to tear his attention away from Buffy long enough to give Jesse a withering glance. "And this coming from the man who thought that _Star Wars_ was based on a true story."

"Hey, I was ten! And you can't tell me you weren't hoping lightsabres really existed."

"It _would_ be cool to get my hands on one of those," Xander relented. "But it would be even cooler to get my hands on Princess Leia!"

The boys high-fived each other and Willow rolled her eyes at Buffy. "Did I say they were my friends? What I meant to say was, I've never seen these people before in my life."

"Then explain those pictures I've got of you and Xander getting frisky together in the pool," Jesse said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "_Naked_," he added in a stage-whisper to Buffy, whose eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Willow was alarmed to see the expression on Buffy's face. "No, no, it's not what you think! We were four years old, and it was a plastic paddling pool in Xander's backyard."

"And we weren't naked," Xander said. "We were wearing bathing suits. Although Willow still probably saw a lot more of me than she wanted to," he added, pretending to hang his head in shame. "Those Power Rangers swimming trunks were pretty tight."

Jesse pulled a disgusted face. "Now there's a mental image I really, _really_ didn't need."

"Hey, the human body is a beautiful thing," Xander told him, grinning.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather you kept your human body to yourself."

"Guys, please." Willow looked painfully embarrassed. "Change the subject before Buffy decides to make a run for it."

"Ay ay, captain." Jesse pretended to salute her and turned to Buffy. "So, would the lady like a tour before the daily drudgery of classes begins?"

"We'll take you to the cafeteria to experience the ghetto-themed décor first hand," Xander offered gallantly. "It's guaranteed to completely ruin your appetite."

"Which is a good thing," Jesse said, "considering that the stuff they try to serve us generally tastes like someone already ate it."

Buffy laughed at their mock-chivalrous tones. "It sounds like a plan to me."

---

**Author's Note: **Somehow Jesse and Xander got all the good lines. :-P I've pretty much already decided not to kill Jesse off (at least not anytime soon). He's got a lot of potential. I have no idea who Buffy's new Watcher is going to be, and Harmony may or may not be making an appearance (on one hand she's good for comic relief, but on the other hand I really don't like her). Cordy and Riley are definitely in for the long haul, though. I might even find a way to pull Fred and Gunn into Sunnydale.

And for the record, curse shmurse. Buffy and Angel are _so_ getting' it on. (That's not to say that there isn't a curse, but I might tweak it just a little. Or, okay, a lot.)


	16. The Ambush

**Author's Note:** For the record, I wasn't actually planning on developing the Watcher angle in this chapter, but somehow it happened anyway, so I guess that dice has been rolled. I did consider both a "good" Gwendolyn Post and my version of Ripper, but ended up choosing someone who's halfway between the two (at least in this fic).

As always, reviews have given me the warm fuzzies (although hopefully not a bigger head – or at least not a _much_ bigger head), and they keep this thing going even when I feel like giving up on it.

**16. The Ambush**

"No." His tone was one of flat-out, non-negotiable refusal. "Or is that not clear enough for you? Shall I make it even clearer?" He leaned forward menacingly, placing both hands on the polished desk and looking into the eyes of the man sitting behind it. "Ask me again, Travers, and I swear to every dark god in existence that they'll be the last words you ever speak."

"Come now, Mr. Rayne. Let us not be hasty." Quentin Travers leaned back in his chair, apparently unmoved by the threat. "You know full well that you have no choice in the matter. Now that Mr. Wyndham-Pryce is no longer among our ranks, you are the active Watcher – and as such, you have been assigned to the active Slayer. It is your duty."

Ethan Rayne stared at his superior in complete disbelief. "You could've chosen anyone! Any one of these tweed-clad, uptight, bored-to-death sons of bitches would be wetting themselves with glee at the thought of taking on an active Slayer, and you choose _me_? Is this a joke?"

"Am I laughing?" Quentin asked simply. "I'm being perfectly serious, Mr. Rayne. This is my decision, and it is final. You will be on the six o'clock train to Sunnydale tomorrow, or you will face dismissal from the Council. And I don't think I need to remind you what the consequences of that would be for you."

Ethan winced. He knew exactly what Travers was referring to. _Smug bastard. I'll get you for this. _"So you're actually going to send me to that godforsaken Hellmouth to babysit some inexperienced, untrained, doomed-to-failure excuse for a Slayer?"

"That," Quentin said, looking at him over the top of his spectacles, "is _exactly_ what I'm doing."

_Two birds. One stone._

---

Although his Algebra teacher's lips were moving and many things of a mathematical nature were being written on the blackboard, Xander Harris hadn't managed to learn a single thing since he stepped into class after the bell rang for third period.

The reason for his inattentiveness was sitting two rows in front of him, her pen poised over her notebook, occasionally writing things down. He loved it when she did that, because then her neck would bend in a graceful arc and the honey blonde waves of her hair would cascade over one shoulder, nearly touching her desk as she wrote.

He'd managed to act fairly normal during the morning's Grand Tour Of Sunnydale High, doing his usual routine of obscure jokes and goofy commentary, but all the while he'd been secretly worried that he'd slip up and suddenly say something ridiculous like "Wow, you're gorgeous", or "I think I love you", or even "Will you marry me?"

_Jesse would've laughed his ass off, _Xander thought dryly – but that was nowhere near as bad as the idea of Buffy laughing at him. Which she probably would, if he ever worked up the nerve to ask her out.

Xander wasn't exactly a ladies' man. He envied Jesse sometimes; his best friend had a way with girls which, if not perfect, was at least usually successful. Jesse rarely got turned down by the girls he asked out, while Xander couldn't even count the number of times he'd heard "No, sorry, I'm … busy that night."

So he wasn't going to risk total heartbreak by asking Buffy out, he'd decided. At least not yet.

_Nope, I'm just going to spend every spare moment either staring at her or thinking about her, because that's not pathetic at all, _he thought sarcastically._ And besides, who needs a girlfriend? Not I. 'Cause I'm the King of Single. The Emperor of Alone. The Master of – _

At that moment Buffy turned her head and, catching sight of him, smiled warmly. Xander made an attempt at smiling back as his heart skipped several beats, and when Buffy turned back to the blackboard he sighed.

_Who am I trying to fool? I'm a goner. That girl's stolen my heart right out of my scrawny muscle-free chest, and she doesn't __even know it. _

---

By a unanimous vote, the four of them decided to stay out of the cafeteria and take their lunches outside onto one of the school's sunlit front lawns. They managed to find an empty bench where Willow and Buffy sat down, while Jesse and Xander sprawled on the grass nearby.

Xander peered into his lunch bag, frowning. "I think my mom's been watching that fancy cooking show on the Food Network again."

Jesse grinned. "Let me guess – chicken pâté on toast?"

Xander looked up at him, startled. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

Jesse held up a slice of bread covered in a strange pink substance. "My mom watched the same episode."

Xander surveyed his own sandwich gloomily. "So, if we report this to social services, how big do you think the chances are of getting our moms locked up?"

"Not big, man." Jesse sighed. "The system is totally corrupt. Even if they did get put away, they'd be out in about a month for sure."

Xander looked depressed. "Yeah." He glanced over at Willow. "What've you got?"

"Low-fat goat's cheese on wholegrain bread, two boiled eggs, a bag of raisins and some carrot sticks," Willow told him. "I can share with you guys if you want."

The boys shuddered. "Uh, no thanks, Will." Xander turned to Buffy curiously. "So, on a scale of sticky pink slime to smelly cheese, how bad is your lunch?"

"Well, let's see." Buffy emptied her lunch bag onto the bench. "One peanut butter and jelly sandwich, three packets of Twinkies, one bag of nacho cheese Doritos, two bags of cherry Twizzlers and a couple of frosted brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts. Oh, and some Skittles." She grinned at the boys. "But I don't suppose you'd want any of this?"

Jesse stared at her for a long, awestruck moment before suddenly getting on his knees and bowing down in worship. "All hail the queen of sustenance! We're saved from starvation!"

He paused in mid-bow to look up at her anxiously. "You _are_ going to share with the less fortunate, right?"

Buffy laughed and handed them most of her snack supply. She'd actually been expecting to share – it was a sure-fire way of making friends on the first day of school, whether in first grade or tenth. _And besides, there's no way I'd be able to eat all that on my own. _

"Your mom must be a very understanding woman," Xander said, sighing in satisfaction as he bit into a Twinkie.

"Yeah," Jesse agreed. "Do you think maybe she'd adopt me? I mean, it's not like my mom would miss me anyway." He feigned a tragic expression. "Whenever she actually bothers to talk to me, she calls me Joey and thinks I'm the gardener."

They all laughed, but the mention of her mother made Buffy uncomfortable. "My mom doesn't pack my lunches," she told them, trying to sound nonchalant. "I do."

"Oh. Is she really busy in the mornings, or…?" Willow's voice died away as she noticed the expression on Buffy's face.

"I don't live with her any more," Buffy said, in what she hoped was a matter-of-fact tone.

"What about your dad?" Xander asked, ignoring Willow, who was frantically signaling at him to shut up.

_Don't say it. Not again. Saying it makes it true. _But she had to answer him. "He's dead," she said finally. "He died in a fire a few months ago."

There was a hushed silence. "I'm sorry," Xander said, in a rare moment of sincerity. "Really sorry. I shouldn't have asked." _Idiot! __Note to self: from now on, obey Willow. Always. Without question. If she tells you to jump, ask how high. Also, practice keeping your mouth very, very shut._

"It's okay," Buffy told him, with a faint smile. "It's getting easier to talk about it. I told Willow last night."

"How'd you two meet, anyway?" Jesse asked, both out of curiosity and a desire to change the subject. "Will isn't exactly a social butterfly, so we usually meet all the newcomers before she does. What?" he added defensively, as Willow glared at him. "It's true!"

"Uh…" Buffy cleared her throat. "I kind of… bumped into Willow at, um…" she looked at Willow helplessly, unable to think of a plausible substitute for the truth. _Well, we met when I saved her from a group of bloodthirsty vampires – except she doesn't know that they were vampires, she just thinks they had some weird skin disease and were probably on drugs. How's that for a quaint little story?_

"We met at the video rental place on Third," Willow said, hit by a sudden inspiration. "We were both looking for Johnny Depp movies and we just kind of got to talking, you know, the way people do."

Buffy gave her a small, relieved smile. "Yup. People will do that. Luckily," she added, "because otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here with you guys."

"Oh, please." The derisive female voice seemed to come out of nowhere, startling them all. "Being stuck with this fashion-free social reject trio isn't _lucky_, it's a legitimate reason to start doing crack and drop out of school."

"Cordelia," Xander said, with a pleasant nod in the cheerleader's direction. "I thought it might have been you. My bitch-detection senses were tingling."

"Ew. Nobody wants to hear _anything_ about your tingling senses, Harris," Cordelia said acidly. Then she focused on Buffy. "You're that girl I saw in LA, right? The one who was with that tall, dark and seriously yummy slice of man pie this summer?"

"Um, yeah. That was me." Buffy wished Cordelia hadn't mentioned Angel, and she desperately hoped she wouldn't be mentioning the Watchers' Council next. _I've managed to pass for a non-weirdo so far, and I'd very much like to keep that going. _

"So how is he?" Cordelia asked, her entire manner suddenly friendlier. "Angel, wasn't it? That's such a sexy name," she added, dreamily.

"He's fine," Buffy said shortly, wishing Cordelia would shut up and be on her merry way to somewhere else.

"Is he here in Sunnydale?" Cordelia's eyes were practically boring into her. "Or, you know what, never mind – just give me his number. I'd much rather be talking to _him_ about him. And the possibility of me going out with him, obviously. He dates, right? I mean, he's not one of those annoying hot celibates, is he?"

"Uh, I hate to be the bringer of reality here, but you already have a boyfriend," Jesse told her impatiently. _Unfortunately for the rest of us, _he couldn't help thinking. He'd always had a thing for Cordelia, although he'd rather die than let his friends know he was one of her many male admirers. "So why don't you just slither along to wherever it was you were going?"

Cordelia arched an eyebrow imperiously. "Riley and I are on a break, not that it's any of your business."

"So the poor dumb jock's finally seen the light, has he?" Xander asked. "What tipped him off – your broomstick, your eye of newt collection, or your pointy hat?"

"Bite me, Harris." Cordelia turned back to Buffy. "You know, for a moment there I almost pitied you. New girl, confused and clearly misguided, gets caught up in the wrong shops-at-Sears crowd. I've seen it happen before. It's a classic social tragedy. But now I see I was wrong." She paused. "You fit right in with these losers."

And having delivered that parting shot, she turned on her heel and walked away.

"Finally." Xander watched her walk away with evident relief. "I was starting to think we'd have to threaten her with carbs to get her to move."

"Speaking of carbs, are there any Doritos left?" Willow asked.

Jesse stared at her. "Will, the last time you ate anything unhealthy was when you swallowed an M&M by accident at my ninth birthday party."

"I know." Willow took a handful of Doritos out of the bag and grinned. "You guys are _such_ a bad influence on me."

---

"So, she was right about pretty much everyone. It's kind of scary actually. Makes me wonder if maybe she has some sort of hidden people-reading powers."

It was turning out to be a fairly quiet night. Buffy and Angel had left the mansion at nightfall, wanting to make up for not patrolling the night before. They'd encountered six newly-risen vampires (inexperienced and therefore easy to tackle) and had a nasty run-in with a ghoul which ended abruptly after Angel took a swing at it with a heavy tree branch and managed to sever its head from its shoulders. Ever since then they hadn't met anything worse than human pedestrians and the occasional squirrel.

"This is the Hellmouth," Angel reminded her. "Anything's possible. That being said, your friend's people-reading skills probably aren't supernatural."

"No." Buffy sighed. "I guess it would be too much to hope that someone else would be in on this whole Hellmouth-y superhero thing."

"I thought you wanted to be normal. Doesn't that include having normal friends?"

"Strictly speaking, yes. But in the world of being Buffy, normal friends equals friends who don't really know me. And that sucks."

He wasn't sure how to respond. Although on some level he was glad that Buffy had managed to find companions at school so quickly, on a deeper, more secret level he envied them, these people who were her age and lived in the same sunlit world that she did. _And human, _he added silently. _Let's not forget human. _

She'd never shown any signs of being disgusted by what he was, but it seemed like a lot of the time she simply forgot that he was not as human as he looked. He drank blood out of mugs and took care never to morph in front of her unless he had to, and sometimes he felt as though it was all just a façade of civility that could come crashing down at any moment.

It wasn't that he missed being the soulless, evil thing that Angelus was, or skulking around in alleyways feeding on rats and generally feeling sorry for himself. He was amazed that he'd come from that to his current state of near-perfect contentment, walking by the side of the girl he loved above all else. He wasn't stupid enough to be ungrateful for what he'd been given. But he couldn't ignore the truth of his nature the way Buffy seemed to do. It would slip his mind for a moment, but then he'd notice the coolness of his skin compared to hers, or find himself tracing the veins in her neck with his eyes without even noticing that he was doing it. _Once a monster, always a monster. _

"Penny for your broodings?" Buffy's voice cut into his reverie and he turned to find her smiling at him. "Or, since I don't actually have any pennies on me, a kiss for your broodings?"

He just about managed to return her smile. "They weren't interesting enough to be worth a penny, but could I maybe have that kiss for free?"

Buffy pretended to be shocked. "What kind of girl do you think I am?" But she moved forward willingly and wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her toes to kiss his mouth softly.

Angel was prevented from responding by the sudden sense that they were no longer alone. "Buffy –"

She nodded, easing herself gently out of his arms. "Yeah, I know. I'm thinking, five vamps with _very_ lame ambush tactics, out to get the helpless girl out alone late at night with her boyfriend."

She smiled as five figures began making their way out of the shadows on either side of the street. "God, these people are so predictable."

She pulled Mr. Pointy out swiftly, but tucked her hand under her sleeve so that he wouldn't show. "Can we help you with anything, gentlemen?" she asked, widening her eyes innocently as the vampires approached.

The vampires all laughed huskily in what was clearly meant to be a menacing manner, but they didn't slow their approach or bother to respond. Buffy waited until the closest one was an arm's length away before whipping out her stake. "You know, you really should have answered me. It was your only chance to say your last words."

The nearest vampire stared fearfully at the stake, but by then her arm was already moving and she plunged it into his chest before he could react. "Now, the smart thing for you four to do would be to turn around and run away," she told the remaining vampires.

Instead of taking her advice, one of them let out a hoarse cry and attacked Angel. Buffy sighed. "But then again, why do the smart thing when you can go the stupid way and get yourselves killed?"

She let Angel deal with his attacker and turned her attention to the other three vamps, who were circling her warily. "Oh, come on, fellas. One of you has gotta be the first to go." She spotted a mermaid tattoo on the bicep of the largest vampire. "And it might as well be you, Mr. I Reek Of Unoriginality."

She moved into a roundhouse kick, hoping to bring him off his feet. She was shocked when he managed to grab hold of her ankle and use her momentum to flip her backwards onto the ground. She hit the pavement hard, sending a shooting pain up her spine. _Ouch. Okay, so these clearly aren't the usual fresh-from-the-grave newbie vamps. Somewhere along the line they've picked up some serious combat skills. _

She rolled just in time to avoid a kick to her stomach and stood up quickly, ignoring the pain in her back. _Not a problem, though. A few tricks is nothing compared to the Slayer package. _She landed a quick scissor-kick to one of her opponents' jaws, but he recovered quickly and went after her with a series of punches. She parried them easily, but as she did so she was backing up slowly without noticing, too busy keeping her eyes on the vampire's fists.

By the time she'd backed up into the waiting arms of the largest vampire, it was too late. She was caught in a hard chokehold, and a punch to her stomach by one of the other vamps sent Mr. Pointy flying onto the pavement. She struggled, looking past the other two vampires for Angel, only to find that he was still fighting the fourth vampire, who she now saw had managed to arm himself with Angel's stake – leaving Angel weaponless.

_Oh God. Not good. This is _so_ not good. _

---

**Author's Note:** Dah-dah-_dum! _Cliffhangery goodness! Although to be honest, I think it's kind of an obvious cliffhanger. :-P

Now, go review. You know you want to. (Or, okay, you know_ I_ want you to, which is close enough, right?)


	17. The Teacher

**Author's Note:** As usual, major thanks to everyone who reviewed. After reading over past chapters, I've realized that my Buffy seems to eat/talk about food a _lot_ more than she did on the show (probably as a direct result of my _Gilmore Girls_ rerun addiction :-P) and I'll try to tone that down in future.

Arobow: (look, second mention!) I _did_ consider having Xander react at the mention Cordelia's mention of Angel, but it seemed like the obvious thing for him to do; I'd rather have it strike him in retrospect that she probably wasn't talking about Buffy's kindly older uncle. (You'll see what I mean). And hello, Buffy can't be on the winning end of things _all _the time. Where's the fun in that?

Also, michebabyblue pretty much called my bluff: it's Rayne To The Rescue! Like I said, I figured it would be kind of an obvious cliffhanger, but I couldn't resist. :-P The idea of a Tweed-Clad Avenger was just too cool to pass up (okay, so _technically_ he doesn't wear tweed, but that's beside the point).

**17. The Teacher**

Buffy was trying hard not to panic. She'd already let several possible combat tactics flit through her mind, but she'd been forced to dismiss them all. Not only did the beefy, supernaturally strong arm around her neck and the hand covering her mouth prevent her from an attempt at a backwards head-slam, but the two vampires standing in front of her hadn't taken their eyes off her for a second. Even if she managed to harm the vampire holding her, it wouldn't take long for the other two to react, and then she'd probably be permanently down for the count.

_Okay. Breathe. Just… breathe, and think. What would Merrick have said? Didn't he have a plan for this kind of uber-sticky situation?_

But thinking was becoming difficult. Still not taking their eyes off her, the three vampires had begun a rapid-fire discussion about which one of them would get to "taste her" first. _Like I'm a lollipop they're all sharing or something,_ she thought, disgusted.

She could just about see Angel; he and his opponent had moved to the far sight of the street, completely caught up in a furious hand-to-hand battle. Taking Angel's stake had given the other vampire the upper hand, and Angel was having to do a lot of dodging to avoid sudden, swift staking attempts. He couldn't afford to take his eyes off his opponent for a second.

_This isn't the way this is supposed to go down, _Buffy thought, as the three vampires surrounding her continued to argue. _These are just vamps. They're not the brightest crayons in the box, and they don't have Slayer instincts. They're not supposed to win!_

But then she remembered what Merrick had told her about Slayers having a very short lifespan. _All right, so I guess they do win. A lot. But I always figured I'd at least make it to my seventeenth birthday. _

The three vampires surrounding her seemed to have come to a decision. One of the two standing in front of her – a lean, wiry creature with oily dark hair – moved forward, his vampiric features twitching repulsively as he leered in anticipation.

_Oh, ew._ Even in the midst of being very, very afraid, Buffy managed to feel both disgusted and scornful. _This is the guy who's gonna eat me? Couldn't it be anyone less gross? _

The vampire, being unable to reach her neck past the chokehold, picked up her arm and lowered his head over her wrist. She struggled hard, but his grip on her arm was vice-like. Fangs gleaming, he opened his mouth to bite –

– and promptly disappeared in a shower of dust.

Taking advantage of the shocked stillness of the remaining two vampires, Buffy bent forwards sharply, breaking the chokehold, and retrieved her fallen stake. The largest vampire lunged for her, but she ducked underneath his arms and pushed the stake upwards into his ribcage, killing him instantly.

She turned to the last vampire, but he had finally decided to the smart thing and was fleeing for his life. Buffy took careful aim and threw the stake as hard as she could. It flipped through the air several times with a satisfying thwacking sound before piercing the vampire's heart through his back. He was dust in seconds.

_Just like the creep who tried to bite me. Thank god Angel managed to get his stake back, or else I would've been an empty can of Buffy-juice by now. _

But to her shock, Angel was still fighting the last of the vampires. And a tall, unfamiliar figure was now standing on the street corner, armed with a crossbow aimed directly at the two vampires. There was a sharp twang as the crossbow was fired, and a wooden arrow found its way into the heart of Angel's opponent. Like the rest of his companions, he was dust.

For a second Buffy felt relieved, but then the figure reloaded the crossbow swiftly and took aim again.

At Angel.

Buffy didn't stop to think. Her legs were moving before she knew what she was doing and she tackled the figure hard, bringing them both down onto the pavement. She grabbed the crossbow from the man's loosened grip and stood up, breathing hard, holding it pointed at his chest.

The man just lay there, looking up at her. "Your aim is completely off. My heart's lower than that, and a little to the left." He sounded exasperated. "If you're going to kill me, do it properly."

She managed to register the fact that he had a strong, polished British accent before fury took over. "I know _exactly_ where your heart is, believe me," she told him coldly. "But I'm not going to kill you."

"No, you're only going to prevent me from ending the life of an evil bloodsucking fiend," he said. "Good plan. Would you perhaps like to tell him where he can find his next victim? Or were you going to volunteer for the position yourself, since you seem to make such a habit of it?"

"Habit? I've only ever been caught like that _once_," she told him angrily.

"I hate to break it to you, but once is quite enough for them to kill you. Or did your last Watcher forget to mention the trivial little fact that vampires usually suck the blood of their victims until there's not a drop left in their bodies, resulting in a slow and painful death?" His tone was mock-sympathetic. "It's very unfortunate, I know, but there you have it."

"Don't you dare insult Merrick." Suddenly the crossbow seemed to shift in her hands, and now it _was_ aimed at his heart. "I don't know who the hell you are, but you're obviously clueless if you don't know what an awesome Watcher he was."

"'Awesome', was he?" The man repeated scornfully. "Then how did he manage to train such a weak Slayer? Face it. I'm the only reason you're still alive, girl. You let yourself be overpowered and then you stood around awaiting death, as though attempting to fend off a group of vampires would have been too much effort for the so-called Vampire Slayer. It was truly pathetic."

Buffy tried to ignore the humiliation she felt at hearing his derisive words, but she couldn't stop herself from blushing. It was the truth. _I almost died, and now I owe my life to this jerk. _As he continued to look at her with disgust and scorn mingling in his expression, she suddenly felt the embarrassing urge to cry. She'd let Merrick down. She'd forgotten her training, and now a complete stranger was legitimately treating her like something he'd scraped off the bottom of his shoe. _I failed._

But before the urge to break down could result in actual tears, she felt the familiar touch of a cool hand on her shoulder. She let the crossbow fall and turned silently to face Angel. They embraced, holding each other tightly, ignoring the man's presence.

Angel lifted a faintly trembling hand to stroke her hair, unable to believe that they'd come so close to disaster. "I almost lost you," he whispered, awed by the sheer possibility of something so horrific happening after the bliss of the past few days.

She buried her face in his chest, breathing in the scent that seemed to cling to all his clothing, unidentifiable and yet uniquely his. "I'm sorry." She wasn't sure whether it was meant to be an apology or an admission of guilt, but it didn't seem to matter. "I'm so sorry, Angel. I tried. I was trying, but I couldn't –"

"Shhh." He hushed her gently. "Not your fault. More mine than yours, if anything. My senses let us down."

She looked up at him questioningly. "Those vampires were ancient," he told her. "The one I fought had at least three hundred years on him, probably more. And the others weren't much younger. With that much experience, it isn't surprising that they almost…" here he stopped, unable to continue, his arm tightening convulsively around her waist. "But I couldn't tell at first. And when I did, it was too late."

"_Almost_ too late," she whispered, with the ghost of a smile. They both glanced involuntarily at the stranger, who had risen to his feet and was staring at them in utter disbelief.

Buffy followed his line of sight and suddenly realized that Angel's face was still that of a vampire, complete with a ridged brow and lethally sharp fangs, his irises glowing yellow in the dim light. _Oh, so that's what he's staring at. _She hadn't even noticed.

She reached up to trace the deep, livid groove between his eyes, smiling faintly. Angel stood completely still; he was shocked at himself for not morphing back after the fight, but he was even more shocked at her, for looking up at him with the same degree of love and tenderness in her eyes as always.

His shock became downright amazement when she held his face in her hands and guided his mouth onto hers, kissing him with a passion that completely defied the presence of his fangs. She even traced their edges lightly with her tongue, inflaming him. He ignored the sudden overwhelming stab of desire and concentrated instead on how good it felt to be kissed like this, in a way that proved she accepted him as both man and monster. _I may be damned, but not by her. Never by her. _

_And that's all that matters. _

"Oh, for God's sake. Is this really happening, or have I stumbled into some godforsaken alternate universe?" The man was watching them in horror. "You're supposed to be staking the bloody vampires, not snogging them!"

Buffy pulled away from Angel reluctantly to give the man a look of cool unconcern. "The only person I'm … 'snogging' … here is my boyfriend. Who has a _soul_." She enjoyed the look of surprise that briefly crossed his face. "And you're interrupting us. So how about you do everyone a favor and go away?"

The man ignored her, focusing on Angel. "So you're Angelus?"

"Angel," he corrected him coldly, keeping his arms wrapped protectively around Buffy. "And you are…?"

"Ethan Rayne. I was sent by the Council to find you," the man continued, turning to Buffy. "I am your new Watcher."

Buffy had suspected that he might be, but she was still dismayed to hear it. "You're kidding, right?"

"Unfortunately, I'm not." He sighed, looking at her wearily. "It would seem, Miss Summers, that we are stuck with one another."

---

"Did you guys hear the latest?" Xander asked, catching up to Willow and Buffy as they were walking to their fourth-period History class the next day. After comparing schedules in the morning, they'd realized that History was the only class all four of them would be taking together, and they were looking forward it. "We're getting a brand-new History teacher."

"What happened to Mr. O'Brien?" Willow asked, obviously disappointed. He'd been one of her favorite teachers.

Xander shrugged. "Beats me. He probably quit. I mean, come on – how can anyone last more than a year working for Snyder?"

"Good point," Willow said. Not even kind, sweet-natured Willow could help disliking Principal Snyder. "So who's the new teacher?"

Xander shrugged again. "I don't know. Jesse's got all the details." He turned around and was unsurprised to see that his best friend had stopped a few feet behind them to talk to a pretty, dark-haired girl who was giggling at something he'd said. _Great. Casanova's at it again. _"Hey, Jesse!" he shouted.

Jesse glanced up at Xander before turning back to the girl and murmuring something. The girl smiled, pulled out a pen and scribbled something on a piece of paper before slipping into his hand. Jesse smiled back at her before sprinting up the hall to join his friends.

"Success!" He flapped the paper in the air triumphantly. "Seven-digit score _and_ an official Friday-night date." He sighed happily. "It doesn't get much better than this, people."

Xander rolled his eyes. "J-Man, get over yourself for a minute, and tell the girls about the new History teacher."

Jesse looked at his watch. "One minute and counting," he said jokingly. "Okay, so here's what I know: the guy's some big ol' History scholar from England. Snyder can't stop raving about him –"

"Which we all know is bad news," Xander interjected.

Jesse nodded in agreement. "If Snyder likes him, there's no way he's decent. Anyway, he's apparently some kind of genius, but this is the first time he's teaching at a high school."

"Which we all know is _good_ news," Xander said. "As far as teachers go, inexperienced _and_ foreign is always a good combination."

Jesse grinned. "Definitely. Snyder-stamp-of-approval aside, I think we're going to have a lot of fun with Mr. Rayne."

Buffy started in shock. "Rayne? As in Ethan Rayne?"

"You know him? Is he really strict?" Willow asked anxiously.

Buffy attempted a smile. "Uh, I don't really know him, no. I've just heard of him." She sighed. "And none of it's been good."

"Even better," Xander said cheerfully. "If he had a good rep we'd feel guilty about treating him badly. Wouldn't we?" he asked, turning to Jesse.

"Oh yes," Jesse agreed soberly. "We'd be devastated. But as it is, I think we can mess with him and still have the spotlessly clear consciences we do now."

"No, you guys," Willow said sternly. "Bad or good, he's still our teacher. So don't even think about pulling any of your usual pranks on him."

Xander looked surprised. "Since when do you mind? We pull stuff on substitutes all the time."

"Substitutes are only there for a day," Willow said dismissively. "But Mr. Rayne is probably going to be here for the rest of the year, at _least_. Do you guys really want to give him a reason to hate you?"

Xander and Jesse looked at each other. "Yes," they said simultaneously, grinning.

Willow frowned. "Okay, let me rephrase that. Do you guys really want to give him a reason to put you in detention for the rest of the year?"

They thought about this for a moment. "No," Jesse said finally. "We see enough of this place as it is."

"All right, Will," Xander said, as they entered the History classroom. "We'll be on our best behavior."

When they walked in, their teacher was still nowhere in sight, and the room was mostly empty. They managed to get a row of four desks near the back. Willow took the desk nearest to the window, Buffy sat down at the desk next to hers, and Xander made sure he got the desk next to Buffy's, leaving Jesse with the one on his other side – the one closest to the door.

"Uh oh," Jesse muttered, looking out into the hallway. "Bee swarm, incoming."

Buffy was about to ask what he meant by that when Cordelia walked in, followed closely by two girls that Willow had already pointed out to her as Harmony Kendall and Megan Briars ("the Cordelia wannabes", in Willow's own words). Her eyes swept over the classroom, lingered mockingly on the row Buffy and her friends were sitting, and finally settled on a desk two rows ahead, right in the middle of the room.

There was already someone sitting there, but she didn't let that stop her. "You. Move." The tall boy looked like he was going to respond, but once he looked up and saw who it was he hurriedly changed seats, muttering "Yeah, sure, sorry."

"Unbelievable," Buffy said, watching the boy stumble and nearly fall in his haste to leave Cordelia's chosen seat. "She's like a mob boss in heels," she added, completely forgetting that she'd been the same way herself at Hemery.

"I thought you already had her figured out by now," Xander said. "I mean, you've met her before, you've gotta know what she's like."

"Not really. I only met her for a few minutes; she seemed airheaded and full of herself, sure, but not cruel. I had her figured as more of a bimbo and less of a bitch."

"So, did you, uh, see her at the mall, or…?" Xander asked, clearly curious.

Buffy was unsure of how to phrase her answer. "No. I went to see someone in LA during the summer, and Cordelia was working as his secretary. She let us in to his office, and that was pretty much all I saw of her."

"'Us'?" Xander repeated. He mentally rewound yesterday's confrontation with Cordelia. _That guy! The guy she was going on about – Robin or Sparrow or something. Buffy was with that guy! Okay, I get zero points for observation skills. How could I have missed something so major? _

"'Us' as in you and the, uh…" he tried to remember Cordelia's exact words, "yummy slice of man-pie?"

Buffy blushed. "He's otherwise just known as Angel."

_Right. Angel. What kind of a girly name is that anyway? _He desperately hoped this Angel guy wasn't what he thought he was. "Is he a friend of yours? Or – or an uncle, maybe…?"

Buffy smiled, her entire face softening. "He's my boyfriend," she said, feeling a little thrill at being able to speak the words out loud. It was the exact same thrill she'd experienced when telling Ethan Rayne the night before.

"Oh." Xander tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest. "Does he live in LA?"

_Okay,__ long-distance things never work out – so a boyfriend in Los Angeles is bad, but not very bad. _

"No." Buffy cleared her throat, a little nervously. "He lives here. In Sunnydale."

_A boyfriend in Sunnydale is very bad. _

---

**Author's Note: **If I haven't already mentioned it, the Scoobies are all sophomores. And I'm moving Buffy's birthday up, because for BA relationship purposes, she'd probably be better off as a 17-year-old. Although it still wouldn't be perfectly legal for her to sleep with Angel, under California state law it could be ruled a misdemeanor and that's close enough for me. (Although honestly, I could just write my own laws for this fic and call it artistic license).

I realize that I skipped an entire night between the first part of the chapter and the second, but trust me when I say that nothing interesting happened. Also, I know that the Buffy/Angel-in-vampire-mode kiss has been done to death, but it's a BtVS classic moment, so I just had to find a way to work it into the story. I'll try to bring Riley in next chapter, and Ripper (I actually kinda miss him). All else is subject to spur-of-the-moment decisions and me-whims.

You're probably feeling an overwhelming urge to leave a review now – and I say, go for it. :-P


	18. The Bronze

**Author's Note: **faelyn leaf – I hadn't really thought about Buffy being underaged until somebody mentioned it in a review; it's nowhere near being a big deal, but I figured since Buffy would be turning 17 in her second year of high school anyways, I might as well move it up so that all the usual BtVS birthday mayhem can be included in one of the near-future chapters (Coming Soon To A Browser Near You!). :-P

Also, I feel like I need to stress that my Ethan Rayne is _not_ the Buffyverse Rayne, so don't expect any of his usual antics. The only evil human being in this fic so far is Wesley (who's M.I.A. at the moment, but will probably be back), while Ethan, like Ripper, is a borderline case. He also looks nothing at all like the BtVS Rayne. Call me superficial, but I want as many attractive men as possible in this fic, and the TV-show-version Rayne just doesn't cut it (no offense to the actor). And he's a teacher because the school librarian thing's been done before, and history seemed like the most Watcher-y subject.

**18. The Bronze**

After five minutes of waiting, the fourth period tenth-grade History class had grown impatient, and the room was soon filled with a high, constant buzz of talk and laughter as the students chatted, gossiped, whispered and argued amongst themselves. And when the sound of rapid footsteps in the hallway outside was followed by the sudden appearance of a man in the doorway, the noise level in the room showed no signs of abating.

But as the man made his way to the front of the classroom, twenty-three high school sophomores fell suddenly and completely silent.

"Oh. My. God," Cordelia breathed. "Can I have some hot sauce for that side-dish of gorgeousness?" And all around her, the other girls in the class were having similar thoughts.

Their new History teacher was nothing like what they'd expected him to be. His predecessor, Mr. O'Brien, had been a balding, heavy-set man with round spectacles. In contrast, the man standing in front of them now was excessively handsome, with his ash-blonde hair, classic good features and piercing grey eyes. His button-down shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, his face was unshaven and his hair was ruffled, but that only gave him an air of sexy dishevelment in the eyes of his female students. And the fact that he was obviously over thirty didn't even seem to matter.

When he finally looked up from studying the class list that had been put on his desk, he didn't seem at all surprised to see that he was being stared at like a canary in a room full of hungry cats.

"From what Principal Snyder has told me about this class, I've been expecting this first lesson to be quite an ordeal." He gave them a small, wry smile. "But I find your silence highly reassuring. It tells me that there's a slim chance you might actually be _listening_ while I attempt to teach you, and so perhaps this won't turn out to be the longest hour of my life after all."

"In case you didn't already know it, my name is Ethan Rayne." He held up the class list. "Your names are all right here, so please don't bother introducing yourselves. I'm sure I'll be able to match the names to the right faces eventually." He paused. "And if not, I'm sure you'll all enjoy the novelty of being called by someone else's name for the rest of the year."

Harmony Kendall raised her hand eagerly. "So – so you're the new teacher?"

He sighed. "Is there any other reason you can think of that I'd be standing up here now?"

There was a little silence while Harmony considered. "Um… no?"

Rayne made a conscious effort not to roll his eyes. "Well then, there's your answer. Would anyone else like to ask a blindingly obvious question, or shall we move on with the actual lesson?"

As soon as he turned to the board, Xander leaned sideways across his desk to talk to Jesse. "Hey, is it just me, or this guy giving off major jerk vibes?"

"Buffy did warn us," Willow said, looking at Rayne's back with faint but noticeable dislike. "But I didn't think he'd be so… so…"

"Bitchy?" Buffy quipped. Jesse gave an explosive snort of laughter, and suddenly, without even seeming to have turned around, Rayne was watching them. Jesse's laugh died almost instantly, but it was too late.

"Miss Summers, why am I not surprised to find you disrupting my class?" he asked softly. As practically every other person in the room turned to look at her, Buffy felt a flush of embarrassment creeping up her cheeks. _I hate you, _she thought viciously, returning Rayne's gaze in defiance.

_Do you, now? How interesting. I had no idea you felt quite so strongly about me. _

Shock rippled through Buffy's body. If she didn't know better, she'd think that she'd just heard Ethan Rayne's voice in her head. But that was ridiculous – and impossible.

And yet… _Can you hear me? _

Rayne's eyes were still fixed on hers. _Unfortunately for you – yes, I can._

"Miss Summers," he said out loud, "I'd appreciate it if you'd leave this classroom."

Buffy, dazed by her initial shock, couldn't really believe that he would do something as callous as ordering her out of the room. "What?" Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cordelia looking almost indecently happy with the situation.

"Leave. Now." He turned away from her. "And if anyone else decides that they feel like diverting their classmates' attention from the lesson at hand, they will also be asked to leave."

Xander was furious. "What lesson? We haven't even started yet!"

"You can't 'divert attention' if there's nothing to pay attention _to_," Jesse pointed out angrily.

Willow gave the boys warning glance, but she wasn't feeling much calmer. "What they means is, Buffy didn't technically do anything wrong. And even if she did," she continued, "you can't just throw her out of class."

"You're right," Rayne said thoughtfully. "I can't. So, since Miss Summers cannot simply be sent out to wander the halls alone, I will send all four of you out to see the principal together." He turned abruptly back to the board.

The four of them were dumbstruck for a moment, but then Buffy quickly stood up and picked up her books. The others followed suit, and soon they were making their way to Snyder's office.

"I can't believe this," Xander said, turning to glare in the direction of the History classroom. "Hasn't this guy ever heard of detention? Not that I'm dying for another hour of after-school supervised boredom," he added quickly, "but sending us to Snyder is cruel and inhumane. And he's _met_ Snyder, so he definitely knows that." He turned to Willow. "You can't tell me I have to be nice to him _now._"

"Oh no," Willow assured him. "You have my full permission to drive him up the wall. Give it your worst." Her expression grew troubled. "The strange thing about all this is, he didn't seem all that mad at first. It was almost like he only got angry after he looked at Buffy."

"He must _really_ not like you," Jesse said to Buffy, grinning. "How's that for a tragedy?"

Buffy managed a small smile. "Yeah… I don't know how I'll survive. I was _so_ hoping we'd be best buds."

Although she was grateful for the support of her friends, Buffy almost wished she was alone; then she'd have time to think. She hadn't exactly loved Merrick when she first met him, but she'd gradually warmed to her first Watcher and had grown to love him as a father-figure and friend. But she couldn't imagine herself ever _not _hating Ethan Rayne – who seemed to be trying his hardest to make her miserable – and that was going to be a problem if he was going to train her as a Slayer _and_ grade all her History papers.

And then there was the issue of his seriously spooky mind-reading skills. Neither Merrick nor Wesley had ever shown any signs of being able to communicate with her telepathically, and so she didn't think it was a Watcher thing. She was surprised, since she'd never encountered an actual telepath before and had thought they were basically a myth; but as much as it surprised her, it didn't really freak her out.

_I mean, sure, a mind-reading Watcher would be extremely weird anywhere else, but on the Hellmouth it's almost boring._

---

To their surprise, Snyder looked delighted to see them. He sat at his desk, fingers joined in a steeple, his beady eyes watching the four of them make their way into his office. "Ah, my very first batch of delinquents. I've been expecting you."

Willow looked confused. "Did Mr. Rayne tell you he was sending us in?"

"Oh no," Snyder said softly. "He didn't have to." He pointed a stubby finger at Xander, and then at Jesse. "It was only a matter of time before you two slipped up and paid me a visit again, and Miss Summers… well, what with your colorful track record, I'm only surprised you haven't been in here sooner." He smirked at Willow. "Miss Rosenberg, you've clearly made a mistake in your choice of company."

Buffy didn't have to ask what he was talking about, but the others were giving her curious glances. _I came so close, _she thought mournfully, watching Snyder pull out a thick file that looked suspiciously like her school records. _I almost had it. Normal friends, great boyfriend, an almost-average life. But I guess there's no escaping the freak label once it's been stamped on your forehead. _

"I asked to have your transcript sent over," Snyder said, tapping the file, "and it made for a very interesting read. Apparently you weren't formally charged for burning down the Hemery High School gym, but it was a close call, wasn't it? And there's something in here about assaulting fellow prom-goers, as well… Yes, a very interesting read indeed."

His voice was quiet, but to Buffy it sounded amazingly loud. She could hear Willow stifle a gasp, and the boys were staring at her incredulously. _Bye bye, non-outcast-ness; hello, bottom rung of the social ladder._ "You don't understand. Those people were –"

Snyder waited, but Buffy couldn't come up with a plausible replacement for 'vampires'. "Bikers," she said finally. "Uh, really violent, angry bikers." _It's not like it matters what I say anyway. I'm already doomed. _

"Bikers," Snyder repeated slowly, and with obvious disbelief. "In a Los Angeles high school."

Buffy sighed. "I guess you had to be there to believe it."

Snyder spent a few minutes talking to them about the importance of being on their best behavior while they were within the walls of 'his school', but Buffy wasn't paying attention; she couldn't shake the awareness that her friends were regarding her with shock and just a little fear. It wasn't much, but it was there. She was no longer Buffy Summers, cool new girl from L.A.

She was Buffy Summers, arsonist.

---

"Is the phone ringing?"

Buffy barely heard Angel's words – partly because he murmured them with his mouth pressed to her skin, but mostly because the pounding of her own heartbeat seemed to be drowning out all other sounds. "Is it?"

"Mm-hmm." He smiled at the sigh that escaped her when he kissed her again. "We should answer it."

"No," she said, as firmly as she could manage. "They can call back later."

They lay on the living room sofa, comfortably entwined, and Buffy had no intention of moving from her current position of being stretched out beneath her gorgeous vampire boyfriend while he placed a trail of kisses along her abdomen, lifting her shirt up inch by inch as he went along.

Her skin felt almost feverishly hot compared to the cool silkiness of his lips, but the contrast only made his kisses all the more delicious. Her entire body was tingling sweetly in anticipation of the next kiss, and the interruption of a phone call was _not_ welcome.

"It might be important," he said, trying to act as though he wasn't completely caught up in the taste of her warm, lightly tanned skin and the gentle inward curve of her waist, to which his hand seemed drawn all by itself.

"Not important enough." She let her hand drift to his hair, running her fingers through it as she smiled at him. "Or do you just want any excuse to get away from me?"

"Oh yes," he said gravely. "The past half an hour's been torture." But his hand was still stroking her waist and he couldn't disguise the longing in his eyes when he looked at her.

The phone was still ringing. Buffy rolled her eyes and applied the tiniest pressure to his shoulders with her palms. Due to the hypersensitive awareness they had of each other, the gesture was enough to tell him that she'd resigned herself to the fact that they'd have to answer the phone, but she thought _he_ should do it since he'd brought it up, and she wasn't happy about it.

What it didn't tell him was that she'd just had one of the worst days of her life – a day in which she'd basically lost her friends and learned to hate her Watcher, whom she'd decided to avoid completely – and she desperately needed to feel close to him. She'd wanted to tell him about the events of the day several times since she'd come home from school, but somehow she couldn't muster the strength to bring it up.

Angel disentangled his limbs from hers reluctantly, feeling the temporary warmth his skin had absorbed from hers dissipate almost instantly. He was beginning to find her body heat addictive, like a drug; the only time his own body wasn't cold was when it borrowed heat from hers. That fact would have saddened him if it hadn't given him such a good excuse to take every opportunity to touch her.

When he got to the phone, he was slightly surprised that it was still ringing. _Maybe it really is important. _But they'd only given out their number to school officials and Buffy's friends, and in either case it was unlikely they'd be calling about an emergency.

As soon as Angel picked up, the voice on the other end spoke without giving him a chance to say hello. "Is this the residence of Buffy Summers?"

"Yes," Angel said, glancing over at Buffy, who gave him a curious look. He handed her the phone, shaking his head to say that he didn't know it was.

Buffy said hello and was surprised when her greeting was followed by a long silence. But the voice that finally spoke was all too familiar. "Hello, Buffy."

Her hand tightened over the phone instinctively. "How the hell did you get this number?"

"One of the many benefits of working in a high school is easy access to student contact numbers," Rayne said dryly. "I assure you, it makes my mind-numbingly boring job well worth the while."

"What do you want?" she asked abruptly.

"Well, it would seem we have a situation that needs to be dealt with."

"So deal with it." She was not in the mood to be civil to the man who'd ruined her day, and probably her entire high school future into the bargain. If he hadn't sent her to Snyder, she'd still have her friends.

"Do I really need to explain how this works? I am the Watcher. I _watch._ You're the Slayer. You _slay. _Ergo, this is your problem as much as it is mine."

She sighed, fighting the urge to tell him to go hell and slam down the phone. "So what's up?"

"Do you know of a place called the Bronze?"

"I've heard it mentioned, but I haven't actually been there," she told him. What she didn't say was that Xander, Willow and Jesse had invited her to hang out with them there that night – but that was before Snyder had basically convinced them that she was a psycho. "Why?"

"Evidently, a fair amount of people entered the place earlier tonight, and not a single one of them has come back out. Oh, and the door's been barricaded shut." His tone was still dry, and Buffy was irritated by his apparent lack of concern. "It looks very much like a hostage situation."

"And what makes you think it's a Slayer sitch instead of just a really good reason to call 911?"

"Well, the three dead bodies that have been flung out of the back door so far with puncture wounds in their necks seem like a fairly obvious clue that there are vampires involved," he said, "but then again, I could be wrong."

"You're a real charmer, you know that? You make Mussolini look like a Care Bear," she told him, unable to stop herself. Then she sighed again, trying to calm down. "I'll be at the Bronze as soon as I can."

"Good," was all he said before hanging up.

---

When Buffy and Angel arrived at the Bronze, Rayne was already waiting outside the building. "I think we should decide on a strategy before going in," he told them, as soon as they were within earshot.

"Yeah? Well, here's my strategy: kick down the door, stake anyone with fangs-and-bulgy-forehead-syndrome and get all those people out of there. How's that sound?"

Without waiting for an answer, she ran towards the door and executed a flawless flying kick that reverberated through the solid wood. Another two kicks broke the door clean off its hinges, and it slammed onto the floor of the Bronze's entrance with a thunderously loud crash.

Rayne turned to Angel, bemused. "Is she always like this?"

Angel hid a smile. "She's not much for planning ahead, no."

When they got to the entrance Buffy was standing in the doorway, stake drawn, the door lying beneath her feet. Most of the Bronze's human patrons were crowded onto the dance floor in front of the stage, surrounded by eight or nine vampires holding crowbars and bats, which they thankfully didn't seem to have used on anyone yet. At least a dozen other vampires were scattered throughout the club, some of them holding humans in chokeholds, evidently preparing to bite them.

"Sorry to break up the party, but it's officially closing time," Buffy said grimly. She leant down nimbly, picked up a sizeable shard of wood from the door and, shifting Mr. Pointy to her left hand, used her right to throw it at the nearest vampire. It missed the woman he was holding by a hair's breadth and sank into his heart.

There was a sudden series of loud clapping, and Buffy looked up to see a familiar figure leaning against the railing of the second floor section overlooking the dance floor. "Nice one, Slayer. Is that what you were planning to do to every single one of the, oh, twenty-something vampires in here? Doesn't seem like much of a plan."

_I'd recognize that glow-in-the-dark hairdo anywhere, _Buffy thought spitefully, glaring at Spike. "No, I figure I'll just take out about half, and give the rest a chance to run for it."

"Showing a little mercy to the poor vampires, are you? I call that right noble. Somebody should give you a sodding medal or something."

"I said they'd run," Buffy told him coolly. "Didn't say they'd get away."

"Yeah, well, before you get plunge-happy with that stake, you might want to take a look at Dru's newest playmate. She's taken quite a shine to her – haven't you, pet?" he asked affectionately, turning to Drusilla as she emerged from the shadows to stand beside him.

Buffy gasped in dismay. Drusilla held Willow tightly by the arm, one hand digging into her elbow while the other grasped a handful of coppery red hair. "So pretty," Drusilla cooed. "Such a sweet little dolly. She'll do nicely as a friend for Miss Edith."

"You know, I _was_ going to give you the number of a really good therapist," Buffy said, with her eyes fixed on Willow even though she was speaking to Drusilla, "but now I'm just going to kill you. A lot."

Spike grinned. "I was wondering when you'd start singing that old ditty, Slayer. You might want to put a hold on it for now – and call off your minions," he added sharply.

Buffy turned slightly to see that Rayne and Angel had been making their way separately to the staircase leading up to the second floor, but they stopped when they saw what Spike was doing. When she turned back to Spike, he was flanked by two other vampires. One of them was holding an unconscious Jesse, while Xander struggled in the grip of the other.

"Either you and the Hardy boys back off, or your friends are buggered."

"Who says they're my friends?" Buffy asked, hoping she sounded nonchalant. "Maybe I'd rather kill you than save them."

Spike snorted. "Yeah, and maybe I'm Mother bloody Theresa. I've done my homework, Slayer. These sods are the only people who can stand you. You don't want to see them get chewed on."

When Buffy was silent, he nodded. "That's what I thought. Now, be a good Slayer and put the pointy wood down. Then we can talk about who gets to walk out of here in one piece."

---

**Author's Note: **I still haven't worked out how to end this scenario. I did have a plan for this chapter, but I kinda ended up ignoring it. :-P Anyways, suggestions would be good. Non-suggestion-y reviews, also good.

Oh, and I'm not planning on making Rayne any kind of superhero or anything. The telepathy thing was spur-of-the-moment and has an almost rational explanation, I swear.


	19. The Plan

**Author's Note:** Once again, reviews have been a major boost to my stick-to-it-iveness. Knowing me, this fic should've been dead by now, since I'm not usually much for getting past the first few chapters. But I can't abandon this as long as I know someone _somewhere_ enjoys reading it.

I already addressed mendenbar's age point (that whole reply-to-review system is nifty); basically I've screwed with the timelines, but not much, since Buffy and company should be around nineteen when they graduate.

Arobow: (third mention! You should get like a regular sideline, you know, **Author's Note To Arobow **or something) In honor of your hell-spawned midterms, I'm totally taking all of your anti-suggestions into account and piling on the quips in this chapter. (Be warned: If I end up going overboard, I'm putting all the blame on you). And the funny thing about praise is, much like comic book characters and really good wine, it never gets old – so, you know, I ain't complaining here. (The people who have to swerve around me on the sidewalk to avoid bumping into my massive ego might, but who cares about them?)

**19. The Plan**

"No."

Buffy fixed Spike with her most level stare, determined not to let him know what she was thinking. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of the vampires who was guarding the dance floor, gripping an axe. She was trying to judge how close he was standing, but it was hard to do without looking directly at him. _I'm thinking, four or five feet at most; but can I get that far before one of these morons tries to stop me?_ The important thing was to keep Spike distracted while she worked out the rest of her plan.

And she needed back-up. She had no idea whether or not she'd be able to grab the axe without getting tackled, but if she did, she needed someone ready to take advantage of the diversion. She turned her head very slightly and caught Rayne's eye.

_Okay, this is weird as hell and I feel stupid even trying it, but… if you can hear me, I need you to be ready to sprint up those stairs as quick as you can, as soon as I manage to distract Billy Idol up there. I'm talking Duracell-bunny fast here, okay? You won't have long. I'm hoping Angel will take your lead. I need you to get to Willow and the boys. _

There was no reply, but for a second she thought she saw the Watcher give her an infinitesimal nod. It would have to do; she didn't want Spike to notice that her attention had wandered, and she couldn't afford to be silent any longer.

She turned her focus back on the vampire. "I mean, for a second there I was thinking 'Hey, I'll just go ahead and surrender to the peroxide-loving freak', but then I changed my mind." _Yeah, there's definitely not more than five feet between me and Axe Vamp. I can make it._ "It just wouldn't look good on my resume, you know?"

Spike looked slightly taken aback by Buffy's reply, but not by much. He'd been expecting some sort of resistance, a show of bravado to prove she wouldn't be easily swayed. It wouldn't make any difference to the final result. "I'll admit you've got a pair on you, love, but this isn't the time to be doing the Slayer swagger. I say the word and these three won't be the only ones to die tonight." He gestured at the other vampires standing below, awaiting orders. "This is my show, and you're gonna dance to my tune – whether you like it or not."

"Is that your new ad slogan? 'Cause I've gotta say, it needs a little work. You should try something friendlier, like 'We can help you find the load-bearer!'"

Spike looked confused. "What?"

_Okay, _now_ would be a good time for Slayer super-speed to kick in. _Buffy sprang into motion, sprinting towards the vampire with the axe, dusting him with a quick sweep of her stake, grabbing the axe from mid-air and tossing it upwards – all in one single, fluid motion.

Spike flinched, expecting the axe to hit him, but a second later he realized that it had buried itself in one of the wooden beams just below where he was standing. "Bad move," he growled, lifting his hand to signal to the vampires holding Buffy's friends.

He was stopped by the sound of a sudden, ominously loud crack beneath his feet.

"See, it pays to listen up in woodshop," Buffy told him, as the structure that held up the second floor began to creak and sway. "With the load-bearing beam all chopped up, I'm giving you, oh, three minutes or so before your cold, undead body gets introduced to a pretty nasty fall and a whole lotta splinters."

"Moron," Spike spat. "If I go down, your friends go down with me."

Buffy shrugged. "Oh well." She was careful not to glance towards Rayne, who was standing inches behind the vampire who held Jesse, or Angel, who'd quickly and quietly snapped the neck of Xander's captor and was trying to make his way over to Drusilla without alerting Spike, or any of the vampires standing below, to his movements. The scaffolding beneath the second floor was swaying dangerously now. "At least you get to watch me take out all of your surprisingly unperceptive henchmen before you die."

Without turning, she drove her stake backwards into the chest of the vampire who'd foolishly thought he could sneak up on her. Before his ashes had even finished drifting to the floor, she was fighting three of the other vampire lackeys. As the other vampires realized that the Slayer had the upper hand and began to flee the building, the people who'd been held hostage on the dance floor rushed in a blind panic towards the Bronze's back door and the windows, desperate to escape the most bizarre situation of their lives. None of them gave any thought to trying to help their rescuer.

_Seriously – ingratitude much? _Buffy thought bitterly, ducking to avoid a swinging crowbar. She dodged a second swing and took advantage of a clear view of crowbar-holder's chest, letting Mr. Pointy make quick work of him. The other two were already dust, and as the Bronze was quickly emptying of both vampires (the few of them who were still standing, that is) and humans, she could afford to look up towards the second floor – although she was afraid of what she might see.

There hadn't been many other vampires up there besides Spike and Drusilla to start with, so she was expecting to have a clear view of her friends, but to her shock there was absolutely nobody left standing on the unstable second floor section of the club. With an almighty rumble, the scaffolding began to collapse completely as the beams gave way under the weight of the floor and furniture; and although she scanned the entire section frantically, she couldn't see any sign of either her friends or her enemies.

---

Buffy was so distracted that she almost didn't notice the figure approaching her from behind.

Almost, but not quite. She turned just as Drusilla gave a low, guttural growl and lunged for her. Buffy spun to avoid her outstretched hands and landed a quick blow to the side of Drusilla's face. "You ruined the game," Drusilla hissed. "You and the Angel-beast, you ruined my sweet Spike's beautiful plan."

"Yeah, we did, didn't we?" Buffy grinned, obviously pleased with herself. This seemed to annoy the female vampire, who lunged for her a second time. She wasn't much of a fighter, but she managed to get a tenacious grip on Buffy's shoulders, digging into the flesh with her fingernails.

Buffy flinched and tried to maneuver Mr. Pointy towards Drusilla's back, but the grip on her shoulders was too painful to allow for much mobility in her arms. "If you didn't want your parade to get rained on, you should probably have stayed the hell out of my town." She balled her hands into fists and raised them just enough to bring them down onto the crooks of Drusilla's arms with brutal force.

The vampire hissed and her hands slid off Buffy's shoulders long enough for the Slayer to whip out her stake and plunge it point-first into her heart. Drusilla's face took on a shocked, slightly dazed look before her body disintegrated into ashes.

"No! _No!_" The howl of pain was surprisingly close, and before Buffy could react Spike's body collided with hers, knocking her onto the floor. Momentarily winded, she felt Mr. Pointy slip out of her hand and roll across the floor just as the vampire straddled her, pinning her down.

Even with his game face on, she could see the fury distorting his features as he leaned over her. "You'll pay for that! You killed her – you killed Dru –" his voice broke as his grief overcame his anger. But only for a second. Then his hands flew to her neck, wrapping themselves tightly around her windpipe. "Don't worry," he spat, "I won't strangle you to death, Slayer… at least not before I rip your still-beating heart out of your body and feed on it while you watch! I'll make you feel my pain a million times over, I'll –"

His tirade was cut short as a brutal blow to his head sent him sprawling. Angel glanced down at Buffy, making sure she was okay, and she nodded briefly, ignoring the searing pain in her neck. Then he turned and followed up his first punch with a second, and a third, and fourth, and a fifth, unable to even think about containing his fury as he pummeled his grandchilde mercilessly. The demon within him was roaring its approval, and for once his human half agreed with it – they both wanted to see Spike dead. He'd come far too close to hurting Buffy.

But Spike's fury was an equal match for Angel's, and even though his instinct was to fight back despite the damage done to his face and body, he chose instead to flee, barreling his way out of the nearest window. He needed time to recover, but he was determined to avenge Drusilla's death – one way or another.

---

Buffy eased herself up off the floor, biting back a groan as the soreness in her limbs caught up with her.

"Here." A hand held out Mr. Pointy, and she took him back gratefully before looking up at the hand's owner. "You're all right," she said, her voice full of genuine relief.

Xander looked embarrassed, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I am – thanks to you and your … uh, vampire-fighting vampire friends." He was looking nervously towards Angel as he spoke, staring at his fangs and feral yellow eyes. The vampire had pursued Spike to the window, only to find that his grandchilde had disappeared, and Xander was trying to work out whether or not he should be afraid as Angel turned away from the window and began to walk towards them.

"I thought you would've run for the hills by now," Buffy said, in a much cooler tone of voice, remembering the way he'd avoided her after their run-in with Snyder. "You know, followed the rest of the herd to safety and forgotten all about your fun-filled near-death experience. It's what all the kids are doing these days."

Xander shrugged, smiling faintly. "I'm not big on selective memory loss, even if it is the hot new thing around here."

She returned his smile and they stood together in comfortable silence for a moment, not needing to say anything else. But then Buffy felt Angel come up behind her and she turned, allowing herself to be taken into his arms – not noticing that Xander looked away quickly, hurt flickering across his face. For a moment she let go completely and just let Angel hold her, his arms a welcome shield between her and the horrible events of the night. She allowed herself to be Buffy the girl, tired and shaken, rather than Buffy the Slayer, who wasn't supposed to be either. Then she pulled away, giving him a fleeting, grateful smile; she wanted to stay in his arms, but they both knew there were more pressing issues to be dealt with.

"Where's Willow?" she asked, turning briskly to Xander. "And Jesse? Rayne?"

"All here," Rayne called, limping slightly as he entered through the back door, followed closely by a wide-eyed Jesse and a very shaken Willow. "Thought it would be best to take them out of the building."

Buffy nodded, her eyes scanning her friends quickly for outward signs of harm. They both seemed physically fine, although Jesse was pressing one hand to his side and Willow's arm was covered in minor scratches. "Did you get any of the vamps on their way out?"

Rayne grinned crookedly. "I'm quite sure we got them all."

"We?" Buffy repeated, confused.

Willow gave her an unsteady, but noticeably proud, smile. "Mr. Rayne broke us off some chair legs and we got with the stabbing. It was pretty cool."

Jesse grimaced. "Yeah – in an 'I'm going to need medication for the next thirty years, _and_ a titanium back brace' kind of way. They were really spry for being, you know, dead," he added, keeping his hand pressed to his side. "I always thought vampires moved all slowly and mysteriously, but these guys were like – like –"

"Bruce Lee on speed?" Buffy filled in, and Jesse nodded. "Yeah, I know. Those old Dracula movies totally give people the wrong impression. There's not much eerie victim-stalking and standing outside of bedroom windows involved in the real deal."

"Shame," Willow said wistfully. "I always thought that whole undead seduction thing seemed neat."

There was a pause while everyone else stared at her. She blushed and tried to cover by saying "I mean, on screen, obviously. Not, you know, that it would be all that neat in real life or anything."

"Oh, I don't know." Buffy smiled faintly and slipped her hand into Angel's. "It has its perks."

Jesse's nose wrinkled. "And to that, a profound _ew. _No offense or anything," he added quickly, glancing at Angel, "but if you're a vampire, aren't you supposed to be evil? And like a hundred years old?"

"Two hundred and forty, actually," Angel said dryly. "Give or take a few years. And I _was_ evil. Now I'm not so much."

Willow glanced at him nervously. "What does that mean? That you're still … sort of evil?"

Xander gave Buffy a panicked look. "That doesn't sound like something designed to instill a lot of trust in his ability to _not_ eat us."

Buffy rolled her eyes and resisted the temptation to play along with Angel's charade. "He's just messing with you. He's very much of the good these days, trust me. A bunch of gypsies gave him a soul, and now he's on a strict non-human diet. He mostly drinks pig's blood." She smiled faintly. "It's a very poetic story when I'm not the one telling it."

"Oh." Jesse nodded briefly. "That's cool then."

"Kind of sad for the pigs though," Willow said forlornly.

Buffy stared at her in astonishment. "Will, those pigs are already dead when their blood gets … packaged. And we just buy the packages from the butcher. Angel doesn't kill them, or anything."

Xander shook his head. "Don't bother trying to reason your way outta this one," he advised Buffy. "When Willow gets started on her 'we should all be vegetarian' speech, there's no stopping her."

"I just think we should have a little consideration for the pigs in question," Willow said, sounding a little hurt. "What's wrong with thinking about something before you eat it? Or – or drink it?" she added, glancing at Angel.

"Well, for starters, being hit by a big wave of guilt tends to ruin my appetite," Jesse told her. "Why should I feel bad just 'cause my place in the food chain is higher up than a pig's?"

Rayne had been listening in silence, but now he couldn't resist speaking up. "I can't believe this strikes you as a suitable time to have a discussion about porcine rights." He gestured at the remains of the Bronze's ruined second floor. "We should all leave before the police arrive and start asking a lot of highly inconvenient questions."

Xander gave him an odd look. "You know, I still haven't even worked out what you're doing here. I get that Buffy's a … vampire-stabber, or whatever, but shouldn't you be falling asleep in front of the History Channel right about now?"

"You're assuming he owns a TV," Buffy said. "I'm thinking he's more of a old-books-on-dusty-shelves type of guy." Rayne gave her a deadly look, and she smiled back at him innocently. "But Xander's right. I think it's about time for some major explaining to get done."

Jesse raised a hand. "Yeah, but, uh, where? I mean, Mr. Rayne – hey, do I still have to call you that?" he asked, interrupting his own train of thought. The Watcher's stony expression was answer enough. "I'll take that as a yes. Anyways, he's right – I don't know about the rest of you, but doing jail-time for a building I didn't break doesn't seem all that appealing to me. We need to not be here right now."

Buffy looked questioningly at Angel, and he gave her a slight nod. She turned to the others. "I think the best option right now is for everybody to head back to our place. I mean, there's space enough, and there's no one else around to overhear us, so…" she trailed off, noticing their expressions. "What?"

"_Your _place? As in, yours and his?" Jesse asked, pointing from one to the other. He seemed stunned. Xander was silent, determined to reveal as little of what he was feeling as possible.

"You _live_ together?" Willow squealed, sounding more excited than shocked. "How come you never told me?"

Buffy smiled. "It's not something we're looking to advertise to the general public, Will. We're thinking the nice men in blue probably wouldn't be too happy about it if they found out."

"Yes, the authorities might indeed have some difficulty with the fact that a high school student is living with a considerably older, undead man," Rayne said, and then it was Buffy's turn to give him a deadly look. "Not that it's any of my business, of course," he added languidly.

"Anyway, we should start moving," Angel said, hoping to cut off further conversation; the set of Buffy's jaw told him she was close to lashing out at her Watcher. "We can talk when we get there."

---

**Author's Note: **This chapter was supposed to be longer, but my Internet connection's been on the fritz lately and I figured it would be better to update sooner rather than later, just in case it shuts down completely on me; so explanations about stuff (including Rayne's telepathy skills) will have to wait. That whole load-bearing thing Buffy mentioned was pretty much made up from something I saw on Prison Break. I know squat about architecture, so please don't sue me for misinformation. :-P

Also, I've fixed the typo where Spike was written as Angel's grandsire instead of his grandchilde. It's sad that I can manage to confuse even myself about this stuff. :-(

Anyways, you know the drill. Review if you liked it, don't if you didn't.


	20. The Speech

**Author's Note:** Okay, so, to fix that whole pesky age thing _once and for all_, I'm scrapping the 17th-birthday-chapter plan. So now Buffy's in the right age bracket (15-16, although she's obviously already turned 16), in the right grade (10th). And everybody had better be happy with that, because I honestly can't be bothered with the age thing anymore.

I can't believe that Rayne actually has a fan. He'd probably be delighted to hear it, but I made him all mean and sarcastic, so I don't really understand it myself. Unless mean is the new cool, or something. :-P And I like Allen's Scroll of Aberjian suggestion, but Dru's definitely going to stay dead; Darla might have a vampire-turned-human episode, though. I don't think "Prison Break: The Buffy Chapter" would make a very good fic, but as a show it would be pretty much as good as it gets.

**A****uthor's Note To Arobow: **I can't tackle your entire review because that would take up too much non-chapter space, and even then this is going to have to be a one-time honorary thing (I'll stick to reply-to-review messages after this), but I couldn't _not_ put in a sideline, what with all those poor fuzzy polar bears depending on us (because, come on, sharp teeth and claws and general massiveness aside, those things are just adorable :-P). I fixed the heinous not/know typo (I'm nearly completely cured of inflated-headingitis after that one, by the way) and as to Willow's mental ability to get with the staking, hello, you're forgetting that she already had a run-in with what she now _knows_ were vampires and saw Buffy dust them with her very own eyes, so she has good reason to be less freaked out than the boys! It's almost logical! And I was actually planning on keeping Drusilla alive (or, in Lorne's words, corporeally undead) but then I had a flashback to when she murdered Kendra on the show and I just had to kill her off. I would've put more detail into it, except I didn't want to seem too vindictive and/or gory … and also, the T rating on this fic occasionally does rear its ugly child-friendly head and remind me that pre-adolescents could be reading this. I mean, the M has a rep for being easygoing, but that T's got major attitude issues. (I'm thinking a rating switch might be in order soon).

And now this note is officially _way_ too long. :-P Sorry about that. On with the actual chapter!

**20. The Speech**

"Wow." Willow stared up at the high, vaulted ceiling of the atrium, with its snowy plaster moldings of cherubs and flowering vines. There was a colorful pattern of similar cherubs and vines woven into the thick cream-colored carpet laid out on the floor. "This place is amazing," she said earnestly, turning to Buffy.

Rayne was studying one of the paintings that hung above the fireplace in the living room. "I would have to agree," he said reluctantly, keeping his eyes fixed on the painting. "This Jules Tavernier reproduction is quite remarkable."

"It's not a reproduction," Angel told him, showing him the artist's signature scrawled in the bottom corner. Rayne said nothing, but he was clearly – though unwillingly – impressed.

"I don't get it," Jesse said. "Are you guys like insanely rich, or just really loaded?"

"Angel's both," Buffy told him cheerfully, "but I'm certifiably broke."

"So he's just, what, your immortal meal-ticket?" Xander asked, more sharply than he meant to. He'd intended it to sound like a joke, but instead it came off as an accusation.

Buffy didn't seem to notice anything odd in what he'd said, but Angel gave him a pensive, searching glance before replying. "Oh yes," he said softly. "She's only with me for the money."

Although his tone was lightly ironic, the look in his dark eyes was unmistakably hard. And in the brief moment that Xander returned his gaze with equal coldness, Angel reached a perfect understanding of the way the teenager felt about Buffy. He'd seen jealousy in the expressions of too many young human faces not to recognize it in Xander's. _He wants her,_ he thought, feeling faintly amused, but also surprisingly irritated.

Buffy rolled her eyes, oblivious to Angel's discovery. "Don't worry, I'm not trying to pull an Anna Nicole on anyone, Xand – no matter what Mr. Grumpy Pants over there has to say about it."

Angel broke his silent deadlock with Xander to turn to her, a faintly amused smile crossing his lips. "I don't think I've ever actually been called that before."

She grinned. "Yeah, well, you know me. Much with the immature name-calling. It's all part of my quirky charm."

"Or else it's just quirkily annoying," Jesse pointed out, earning himself a whack on the head as Buffy threw a sofa cushion at him.

"Ooh, Jesse, be careful," Willow said, grinning. "Buffy's got superpowers now. She could get all Hulk-y on you."

"Hey," Buffy protested, "I am _nothing_ like the Hulk. Note my extreme lack of greenness and ripped clothing."

"We could fix that," Jesse said musingly. "The ripped clothing part, anyway."

"Okay, now I _am_ going to get with the Hulk-ing." Buffy started to get up from the sofa and Jesse pretended to cower, holding his arms above his head. "Please don't hurt me! I'm too young and pretty to die!"

Buffy smothered a grin and approached him menacingly, her arms outstretched as though to grab hold of him. Jesse vaulted over the chair he'd been sitting in and ran to hide behind Willow. "Save me, oh slender red-headed lady," he begged piteously, as Willow broke into a fit of giggles.

"Wait – your life is threatened and you run to _Willow_?" Buffy grinned crookedly, momentarily pausing in her fake attack.

Jesse peered out at her from behind Willow's back. "Well, it's either her or Xander," he reasoned.

Buffy nodded at this. "Good point." She reached out to grab him, but he darted aside quickly, and soon she was chasing him in a circle around Willow, purposely moving just fast enough to keep pace with him, but not fast enough to catch him.

"Hey! I heard that!" Xander said, sounding offended; but his voice went unheard amongst Willow's giggles and Buffy's attempts at Hulk-style roars. After chasing Jesse for a while, Buffy put on a sudden burst of speed and tackled him to the ground. As he went down, Jesse's flailing arms caught hold of Willow's cardigan, and she went down with them, shrieking. The three of them collapsed on the floor in a pile of tangled limbs, laughing helplessly.

They looked up to see Xander looming over them with a huge grin across his face. "I am _so_ sending in a story about this to Penthouse."

"Shut up, pervert." Jesse aimed a kick at Xander's ankles and he tripped and fell, ending up in an undignified heap on the floor next to them. This set off another wave of laughter among the other three, and it was a long time before they'd calmed down enough to help each other up into sitting positions.

Rayne cleared his throat. "If you're quite done regressing to childhood, perhaps we should begin the discussion that we actually came here to have."

"Well, since you're so big on the discussing, why don't you start?" Buffy asked idly, shaking carpet lint out of her hair. "You can do the whole Chosen One speech."

"Ooh, there's a speech?" Willow asked, in mock eagerness. "As in, 'I Have A Dream'?"

Buffy grinned. "Don't get your hopes up. It's more like the Gettysburg Address."

"Oh." She looked disappointed. "Well, there'd still better be something rousingly inspirational about it, or I'm walking," she threatened, though the smile on her face completely belied her words.

Rayne started to speak, but Buffy interrupted. "You know what, never mind. I got it." She cleared her throat pompously, and her friends adopted expressions of rapt attention. "Into every generation," she began, in a passable imitation of a deep, solemn voice, "a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world – a Chosen One. She alone will have the strength and skills to hunt the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer."

She pointed to herself and added, in her normal voice, "That would be me. And the Slayer gets trained by her Watcher." She pointed to Rayne. "That would be him. And that's pretty much the whole spiel."

"So basically, the entire world is protected from things of the bad by one girl with a piece of pointy wood?" Jesse asked. "Forget inspirational – that's just downright depressing."

"And I don't get how you can have the whole world covered anyway," Xander said. "I mean, unless you've got a Santa-style sled and a few magic reindeer with funny names hidden away somewhere, how do you get around to it all?"

Buffy shrugged. "Well, that whole 'in all the world' thing is kinda misleading. I'm only supposed to guard the Hellmouth."

"What's a Hellmouth?" Willow asked curiously.

"Uh, I'm not really clear on that myself." She turned to Rayne. "You should probably take the floor on that one. But don't get all long-winded and Watcher-y on us – we want the Reader's Digest version."

Rayne sighed. "The Hellmouth is, quite literally, the mouth of Hell. It is a place where the fabric between our dimension and various other dimensions is measurably weaker –"

"Hold it," Jesse said, holding up a hand. "You lost me at 'Hell'. What, like … _Hell_ hell? Fire-and-brimstone, red naked demons with pitchforks Hell?"

"Does that mean there's really a Torah-version God up there?" Willow asked, pointing towards the ceiling. "'Cause I was kind of hoping He was a She."

"And what's the word on Judgment Day?" Xander demanded. "Should we all be making with the big repentance-for-our-sins before we go six feet under?"

"I'd actually like to know that myself," Angel said quietly, with a small smile. He'd been watching the others silently up until then, paying close attention to the way Buffy behaved around the other teenagers. He noticed that there was something more open and playful about her when she interacted with her friends, and he realized that she was a different person with them than she was with him. With him she always seemed older than her sixteen years, but for the past hour or so she'd seemed … younger, more innocent. _Free. _

The word came unbidden to his mind and he ignored it, but he couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps, in some ways, he was holding her captive from the world she belonged in; the world her friends lived in. And that thought hurt him.

Rayne gave them all a frustrated glare. "This is not about … God or religion, or anything of the kind. We are dealing with the supernatural, not the theological. The Hell dimensions I am referring to are the homes of various demons, yes, but I very much doubt that each one is filled with fire and brimstone – or tortured souls, for that matter."

Jesse exhaled in relief. "That's good to know."

"Comforting," Willow agreed.

Xander nodded. "Oh yeah." Then his face fell. "But the fact that there _are_ Hell dimensions is still deeply disturbing. Where did you say this Hellmouth thing was?"

---

After Rayne explained that the Hellmouth was located directly underneath the Sunnydale High School building, there was a long, stunned silence as the news sank in.

"That's it, I'm dropping out," Xander said bleakly. "Now. Today. No more formal education for me."

"Home-schooling, here we come," Jesse agreed.

Buffy shook her head. "The thing is, the whole town is affected. All of Sunnydale is one big suburban supernatural demon-and-vamp magnet. If you wanted to escape the weirdness, you'd have to skip town."

"Unless of course you're planning on moving to Cleveland, that is," Rayne interjected, smiling wryly. "There's another Hellmouth there."

"What?" Buffy whipped round to face him. "No way! How come Merrick never mentioned it?"

"It's not as important as this one," Rayne said simply.

"Well, that's great." Xander's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Now that we know we're living on the more _important_ mouth of Hell, I guess we can all sleep safely in our beds at night."

"Xander, calm down," Willow said softly. "None of this is Mr. Rayne's fault."

He sighed. "Yeah, I guess. But it's just so out there – vampires, demons, Hell dimensions. All of it. I'm having trouble dealing."

"Isn't there a way to, you know, fix it?" Jesse asked hopefully.

"No," Buffy told him. "There's no magic cure here. Nothing to make the bad guys go away. I have to fight them, and kill them, one by one."

"But when you've killed the last one you'll be done, right?" Willow said, trying to sound encouraging. "You won't have to be the Slayer any more if there's nothing left to slay."

Buffy looked away, unable to answer her. It was Rayne who spoke up. "The forces of darkness are … endless. They have always existed. They will always exist. The Slayer's duty is to fight them whenever and wherever she can, but it's not a battle that can be won."

"So, what? Buffy has to fight them off forever?" Jesse demanded.

"She will fight until she dies, yes," Rayne said quietly.

"And odds are, that won't be too far into the future. Slayers don't usually live past their twenty-fifth birthday," Buffy said bitterly. Her face was still averted from the others. "We're not big on longevity. There's always some big bad out to get us. We fight them, and we beat them, but eventually one of them turns out to be stronger, or bigger, or smarter than we'd expected, and it beats us. End of story."

The look that Rayne gave her could almost be called concerned, but she didn't see it. "A Slayer's life is one of hardship," he said, agreeing with her in his own way. "It is a difficult burden to bear alone, but it _must_ be borne."

"Actually, no it doesn't." They were all shocked to hear the hardness in Willow's voice and turned to look at her in surprise.

Rayne raised his eyebrows. "You would rather the forces of evil prevailed?"

"No," Willow said, "I'm not saying that Buffy doesn't have to do whatever it is a Slayer's supposed to do. It's her destiny, and I get that. But you said _alone._"

"And she's not alone," Xander said, realizing what Willow meant. "She's got us."

"Guys, no." Buffy finally turned back to them, attempting a smile. "I appreciate what you're trying to say, but this is my gig. I don't want you putting yourselves on the line for me."

"Yeah, but what about what _we_ want?" Jesse asked. "You think we're going to hear all about how our hometown is overrun with creepy evil things and not want to _do_ something about it?"

"This isn't some game," Buffy said, her voice sharper than before. "People get hurt. They die. These demons … they're not out to scare anyone, they're out to _eat_ them. Or worse."

"We know what we're getting into, Buffy," Willow said quietly. "We appreciate the warning, but we've made up our minds."

"You're stuck with us now," Xander told her. "So you can either help us help you, or step aside and let us do some demon-ass-kicking of our own."

"Jesse the Vampire Slayer _does_ have a very nice ring to it," Jesse said, grinning.

Rayne cleared his throat. "Slayers are always – and without exception – female."

"Oh. Well, Jesse the … Vampire Slayer's Assistant … doesn't sound too bad either." He sounded uncertain about this, though.

Xander gave him a comforting pat on the back. "Don't worry, J-Man. We'll find a less embarrassing demon-fighting nickname for ourselves in no time."

"And there's no talking you out of this?" Buffy didn't want to give in so easily, but she couldn't deny that she'd much rather fight with her friends by her side.

Willow grinned. "Nope. The motion's been seconded, voted on and passed. There's no going back."

---

At some point they all realized they were hungry, and Buffy led them into the kitchen, where she managed to find enough snacks and sodas for everyone except Rayne, who looked distastefully at the junk food and settled instead for a glass of water. She then heated up a mug of otter's blood for Angel, while the others watched closely. When he raised it to his lips he realized that they were all still staring at the mug – and at him.

Buffy noticed it as well and rolled her eyes. "Take a picture, guys, it'll last longer."

"Sorry," Willow said in a small voice. "It's just so…"

"Yeah," Xander said, not realizing that Willow hadn't actually finished the sentence.

Jesse nodded absently, his eyes fixed on the mug. "Very. I mean, I know it's like your version of coffee, or whatever, but it's still kind of creepy."

"Leave Angel alone," Buffy admonished, slipping into her seat at the table next to him. "You're all being really rude. How'd you like it if someone ogled you while _you_ ate?"

They reluctantly tore their eyes away from Angel's mug, and soon the conversation turned to the events at the Bronze.

"I thought we were goners for sure," Xander said. "That blonde dude sounded like he had you cornered, Buff."

"Yeah, but then she did her thing with the axe and saved everybody," Willow said, smiling proudly. "He didn't see that coming, did he?"

Buffy shrugged, trying not to look too pleased with herself. "That could've gone scarily wrong, though. I mean, if my aim had been off, or if Rayne hadn't been ready to get to you guys…" she trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought. "But it worked out in the end."

Angel eyed Rayne thoughtfully over the rim of his mug. "And how exactly did you know that Buffy was planning on distracting Spike? Because you did know, didn't you," he added. It wasn't a question; it was an accusation. "You didn't move that quickly by instinct."

Rayne was silent, unsure of how to phrase his answer. "She… told me... that she was going to toss the axe."

"I didn't hear her mention it," Angel said. "At least not out loud." And suddenly the room went very quiet as the two men stared at each other. The pause went on for an uncomfortably long time before Angel continued, his voice expressionless. "Care to explain how you managed to hear something she didn't actually say?"

Buffy laid a hand on his arm. "Angel –"

"No," Angel interrupted her, still staring at Rayne. "I want him to answer."

Rayne sighed. "She directed a thought at me. And I heard it. It's really that simple."

"Simple?" Jesse echoed. "You just said you can hear thoughts! How is that simple?"

"Not all thoughts," Rayne corrected him. "Only those directed at me, and only if eye contact is established. It's a … skill I picked up when I was younger." _No need to go into any more detail than that. _What he didn't tell them was that when he was a high school student himself, he'd summoned a chaos demon and bartered a valuable mystic item which he'd stolen from a powerful warlock's private collection in exchange for the limited though highly useful ability to read thoughts aimed him. It had been one of his earliest experiments with the dark arts, and by far one of the least harmful. But he had no intention of sharing his history with the Slayer, or her friends.

"That's how you managed to hear me in the History class, isn't it?" Buffy asked quietly. "I was looking straight at you."

"Wait – what?" Xander asked, doing a double take. "He read your mind in History class?"

Willow gasped. "Oh my god! That's why you went all postal and wanted to kick Buffy out of class –"

"He _what?_" Angel glared at Rayne. "You kicked her out of class for something she _thought?_"

"In point of fact, I didn't kick her out of the class," Rayne said coolly. "I sent all four of them to the principal."

Angel stared at him in disbelief. "Yes, that's _much_ more professional," he said, his voice full of scorn. "Well done."

"What else would you have me do – allow my students to insult me?"

"You didn't actually hear her _say _anything insulting, though, did you?" Angel countered. "You can't punish people for their thoughts, it's completely unethical."

"I find it interesting that _you_ see fit to lecture _me_ about ethics," Rayne said softly.

Angel's face hardened. "Meaning?"

"Meaning that perhaps you should think twice before moralizing, since your own past is far from spotless. As is your present," he added, glancing pointedly at Buffy.

"By your own admission, my relationship with Buffy is none of your business," Angel reminded him coldly. "Leave her out of this."

"Relationship? Is that what you're calling it?" Rayne asked, sneering. "You really think your coercion of a sixteen-year-old deserves that term?"

Angel's patience snapped. He hauled his arm back to punch the Watcher across the table, but Buffy stopped him with the barest touch to his shoulder. It was little more than fleeting brush of her fingers across his skin, but it was enough to bring him to a complete halt in mid-action. He turned to look at her, and she smiled gently, keeping her fingertips on his shoulder. "He's not worth it," she said simply.

"Get out." She didn't look at Rayne, but by the change in her tone it was obvious that she was speaking to him.

Rayne looked outraged. "What?"

"Get out of our house," Buffy repeated, her eyes still fixed on Angel's. "You're my Watcher, and I get that I'm supposed to respect you, but right now all you're doing is giving a centuries-old vampire a whole lotta reasons to hurt you. I think it would be better for everyone if you just left."

Rayne got up silently to leave – but he paused in the kitchen doorway. "I'll be expecting you in the History classroom after school tomorrow. We need to work out a training schedule," he said matter-of-factly.

Buffy nodded. "Okay," she agreed softly.

When they heard the front door shut, Xander exhaled in relief. "Man, that was awkward."

Jesse started to say something, but then he caught sight of the wall clock. "Whoa. Please tell me that thing is off by at least an hour."

Buffy smiled, finally tearing her gaze from Angel's. "Nope. It's –" she noticed the time and paused. "A _lot_ later than I thought it was."

Xander looked up at the clock as well and let out a long whistle. "Damn. We should get going."

"My parents will be freaking out," Willow said anxiously. "I mean, assuming they've realized I never came home."

"I'll walk you guys home," Buffy offered. "I can get some patrolling done on the way back."

"You mean _we_ can get some patrolling done," Angel corrected her.

"I'd say something about how we can get home just fine on our own, but I'm still having traumatic vampire-kidnapping flashbacks," Willow said apologetically. "So instead I'll just say 'yes please'."

"I second that," Jesse said, grinning at Buffy. "Thank goodness you're the Slayer, and not some useless normal person with zero demon-fighting abilities who'd just get killed along with the rest of us when some evil thing attacks us tonight."

"What makes you think an evil thing's gonna attack us?" Xander asked curiously.

"Come on, man. Think about the odds of us getting home safely at three a.m. in this town, considering what we know now."

Xander grinned. "Good point." He paused. "But hey, at least we don't live in Cleveland."

---

**Author's Note: **This chapter got very dialogue-y, but it was kind of necessary, and I figured it would balance out all the action in Chapter 19. Hopefully it wasn't too boring to read. I'll put more actual events into the next chapter.

As usual, reviews would be nice.


	21. The Englishmen

**Author's Note:** It's taken me a while to get this chapter but finished, but after writing chapters 14 to 20 so close together my ability to concentrate on this fic kinda went out the window, and that's what I'm blaming the delay on. (I briefly considered blaming it on myself, but why do that when there's a scapegoat available?)

Marcus Lazarus brought up some points in his review that I figured I should tackle for the record, namely: in the Shadowland universe, Ripper never actually joined the Watchers' Council, preferring to make a less-than-legal living off the dark arts; and I'm not actually planning on repeating episode storylines from the TV show. There'll probably be the occasional outbreak of Hellmouth-y weirdness, but so far this fic has been more about character interaction and development than random Hellmouth events (i.e. giant praying mantis teachers and hyena possession) and it'll probably stay that way.

I'm glad I'm not the only Jesse fan around, and as always, reviews have made me want to go out on the street and hug people at random out of sheer joy (which I haven't actually _done_ seeing as how it could probably get me arrested around here, but still). :-P

**21. The Englishmen**

By the time Buffy and Angel returned to the mansion from patrol, the velvety darkness of the night sky had already given way to the faint, ethereal pale gray light of pre-dawn. They made their way silently up the gravel path that wound through the mansion's overgrown back garden, passing by the ivy-covered sculpted stone fountain on their way to the back door.

Buffy stifled a yawn and her eyes flew automatically to the nearest clock, which read a few minutes past five in the morning. Her entire body ached with exhaustion, but she wouldn't have nearly enough time to sleep it off before school started. _At least it's Friday,_ she thought in relief. _Soon as I get back from school, I can sleep all I want. In fact, I'll have my very own one-woman Sleep-A-Thon. _

She turned to find Angel watching her quietly. "Tired?" he asked.

To anyone else, his voice would have seemed expressionless, but she knew him well enough to recognize the concern in his tone.

"Who, me? Nah." She smiled crookedly. "I think 'ready to drop dead of sheer exhaustion' covers it a lot better."

He grimaced faintly. "No death jokes, please. Watching you take on Drusilla and Spike last night was enough of a Buffy-near-death experience to last me a lifetime."

He held out his arms for her and she drifted readily into them, wrapping her own around his waist. "Don't tell me you thought I would lose," she said, her tone bordering on amused.

"The possibility did occur to me." He sighed, kissing her forehead lovingly. "About a million times, in graphic and highly disturbing detail."

She laughed. "Positive thinking. Look it up." But she was touched by his concern, and by his obvious relief that she was safe now. _And happy, _she added silently, pressing closer to him. _Definitely happy. _

For a moment they simply stood together, lost in the deep wordless comfort of each other's closeness. Buffy let herself lean into the cool solidity of Angel's chest and he rested his chin on the top of her head, his arms tightening slightly around her body.

"You should sleep," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Mm," she murmured in agreement, nestling her cheek into his shirt. "Soon."

"No, now." He spoke quietly, but firmly. "You can't spend the entire day feeling exhausted."

"Can too," she said, smiling to herself. "I'll just nap in class and borrow Willow's notes after school. The boys do it all the time."

She couldn't see him rolling his eyes, but she knew he was doing it. "Stop that," she admonished. "It's a good system. And by 'good', I mean it works. Mostly."

"You know what works even better?" he asked. "Sleeping." He dipped one arm under her knees and picked her up in one swift movement, surprising her.

She held onto his shoulders, laughing. "Hey, no fair."

"Either you get upstairs to bed on your own, or I carry you." His smile faded slightly as he realized the possible doubling meaning of that sentence. And judging by Buffy's expression, she hadn't missed it either. "And I mean that in the most non sexually exploitative way possible."

She leaned in to nuzzle his neck gently. "That's a shame."

He laughed quietly. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were only coming onto me as a distraction tactic."

"Well, that depends." She smiled up at him innocently. "Is it working?"

Angel sighed. "Yes."

He stopped her laughter with a kiss, holding her up against him. He barely felt the weight of her petite frame in his arms and she relaxed completely in his grip, knowing that he carried her with ease. _See, this is why boyfriends who _don't_ have superhuman strength are clearly second-rate, _she thought smugly.

She was so caught up in kissing him that she barely cared that he'd started moving, although she certainly felt it. She briefly thought about protesting as he began to climb the stairs to the second floor, but since he followed up each step with a separate, tantalizing little kiss to her lips, that thought was soon forgotten and she was content to simply hold on to him.

Without moving his mouth from hers for a moment, he maneuvered past the landing and through a door, and she found herself being lowered gently out of his grasp. When she managed to tear her attention away from him long enough to focus on her surroundings, she realized that they were standing in her bedroom.

"Sneaky," she whispered against his mouth before resuming the kiss, her arms still wrapped around his neck.

After a moment Angel pulled out of the embrace, and she made a little noise of disappointment, reaching for him. He purposely stayed out of reach, his dark eyes wearing an expression that could almost be described as wicked. "Sleep," he said softly. "I'll see you this afternoon."

And just like that, he was gone, closing the door behind him as he left.

For lack of a more appropriate response, she stuck her tongue out at the door.

---

"Issu allimonin fosku."

"What?" Jesse glanced sideways at Xander, peering suspiciously at his best friend's heavy-lidded eyes and slack jaw. "Dude, are you high?"

Willow giggled, holding onto Xander's arm to steady him as they made their up the steps to Sunnydale High's front entrance. "No, he's just tired. And I think he said, 'it's too early morning for school'." She paused. "Or else he's asking for alimony."

Jesse snorted. "Please, like Xander would ever have kids. The guy can't keep a hamster alive."

Xander blinked at him. "'As na true!" he protested sleepily. "An' aim _na_ hai!"

"Oh, yeah, that's real convincing," Jesse said, grinning. "Now try saying it _without_ the Robert Downey Jr. drug addict slur in your voice."

"What was that about drug addicts?" Buffy asked, catching up with them just outside the entrance. No one who looked at her could tell that she'd only managed to sleep for about two hours before the alarm rang that morning. She'd changed out of last night's outfit into a pair of jeans and a V-neck sweater, and had even had time to pull her hair back into a ponytail.

All in all, she seemed as well-put-together and as energetic as ever – while in contrast, Xander looked like he was on the edge of passing out completely. His clothes were rumpled, his hazel eyes were unfocused and there wasn't a single strand of his black hair that wasn't standing on end.

Buffy looked at him in concern. "You should maybe have thought about skipping school today, Xand."

"You're kidding, right?" Jesse asked incredulously. "If he missed out on an entire day's worth of education, Willow would kill him and make it look like an accident."

Willow rolled her eyes, though she was smiling. "Ignore him," she advised Buffy.

"Always a wise decision where McNally's concerned," Cordelia's voice said cheerfully, a moment before the cheerleader herself appeared, walking up from behind them. If possible, her outfit was even more revealing that usual, and she'd obviously spent a lot of time on her makeup, which bordered on over-the-top.

Xander managed to revive himself sufficiently to stare at the plunging neckline of Cordelia's top. "On your way to the next skank convention, Cordy?"

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Please, you wouldn't know fashion if it got naked and offered to relieve you of your pathetic virginity, Harris. _This_," she indicated her ridiculously short skirt and figure-hugging top, "is my guarantee that Mr. I Make History Sound Sexy is going to wake up and realize the woman of his dreams is sitting right in front of him." She gave them a regal little wave and sashayed past them to join Harmony and Megan, who were waiting by her locker.

"Oh, God." Willow grimaced. "Tell me that didn't mean what I think it meant."

Jesse looked faintly sick. "I would, but I'm too busy trying to erase the mental image of Cordelia and Rayne sucking face." He shuddered.

"The idea of Rayne doing anything even remotely non-platonic with _anyone_ is creepy enough," Buffy told him, disgusted. "There's no need to get with the details."

"Hear hear," Xander agreed fervently. "Let's talk about something less disturbing – like matricide, or cholera."

Buffy grinned. "Anyone wanna hear the story of how I took out a Gortrach demon on patrol last night?"

"Uh, maybe some other time," Willow said, nudging her. Buffy realized she'd been speaking a little too loudly, and looked up to find someone watching them curiously. A very good-looking, tall, blonde someone whom Buffy found oddly familiar.

The guy seemed to recognize her too, and smiled. "Hey, Beach Party Barbie."

"Um, hi." She smiled back. "I'd call you Ken, except I have this nagging suspicion that's not your real name. "

He laughed. "Points for intuition. I'm Riley Finn." He held out his hand and she shook it, surprised at how warm his palm was. _And in a dry, comfy way, not in a sweaty gross way, _she thought appreciatively. _Not that it matters. At all. Because the only male hands I think about these days are Angel's hands. I'm a one-man's-hands woman. So there, Mr. Warm Palms Finn!_

Buffy told him her name, adding, "And you probably already know my friends." Riley greeted the others casually, but he seemed far more interested in her.

"So, I hear you were at the Bronze last night," he said, his eyes suddenly fixing on hers.

Buffy tried not to panic. _Be calm. _"Uh, yeah, I was," she replied, hoping that word of her axe stunt hadn't spread around the school and he was only asking her to confirm the fact that she was a rampaging psycho.

_Because of course, nobody would've mentioned the vampires,_ she thought dryly._ Oh no. As far as the Sunnydale High rumor mill is concerned, I was just in there tossing heavy weaponry around for the heck of it. _

But to her surprise, Riley grinned. "Some party, huh?"

"Yeah," Buffy agreed hesitantly, deciding to go with the flow. "Yeah, it was."

"I mean, there have been raves at the Bronze before, but this is the first time I've ever heard of the entire second floor collapsing," he continued, seemingly unaware of her reaction. "How many people were up there, anyway?"

"A lot," she said, smiling in sheer relief. _Yes! Way to go, Sunnydale High rumor mill! _"And it's really no wonder they brought the entire section down, what with all the movin' and groovin' going on," she added cheerfully.

A moment later she regretted it. _Movin' and groovin'? What was I thinking? That's grandma-level lame! _

"It's too bad I missed it," Riley said ruefully. Then he gave her a roguish half-smile. "But since you're in on the rave-loop now, how about you take me to the next one?"

"Sorry, but I can't," she said, with genuine regret. _I mean, let's face it, this guy is yummy. If I hadn't met Angel…_

He looked disappointed. "You mean you can't, as in your religion forbids contact with the male species, or you can't, as in you're politically opposed to dating?"

Buffy laughed. "Neither. I have a boyfriend."

"Oh. And here I was, thinking there was a serious obstacle to us going out," he said, looking amused.

"A boyfriend _is_ a serious obstacle," she said, unsure of whether or not he was joking.

For a long moment he didn't reply, his eyes lingering silently on hers. Then he smiled in a way that made it obvious he didn't agree with her statement about boyfriends. "I'll see you around, Beach," he said softly.

After Riley left, Willow rounded on her. "I can't believe this. The most popular guy in school just hit on you! A lot!" She seemed awed.

Xander glanced disdainfully at Riley's retreating back. "Popular shmopular – that guy is so on steroids. And since when is hormone-induced beefiness attractive?"

"Um, since forever," Willow told him, smiling. Then she turned back to Buffy. "Okay, so not only have you got a hunky immortal boyfriend, but _Riley Finn_ obviously has a thing for you." _And I'm not jealous, _she told herself. _Not much, anyway. Just curious. In a best-friend-y, very supportive way._ "How do you do it?"

"It's the hair, mostly," Xander said. "The way it's all bouncy and shiny. And the eyes, obviou–" he stopped when he saw the others staring at him. "Or so I've heard."

Buffy gave him an odd look, but didn't comment on his outburst. "Were you guys even paying attention to the important part of what he said?" she asked instead. "Everybody thinks that the upstairs section of the Bronze fell down by accident!"

"Which means that no one's putting the blame on you," Jesse said, nudging her with a smile.

She smiled back at him happily. "Yeah," she said. "It's a nice change."

---

When the bell rang to signal the end of the day's last class, Buffy couldn't feel the same relief as her classmates; while they were free to go home, she had an appointment to keep with Rayne to discuss her training schedule. Although she'd protested, her friends had insisted on at least walking her to the History classroom, and she had a feeling they'd find a way to stick around for her meeting with Rayne. It felt good to know that they were willing to sacrifice part of their Friday afternoon for her, and she'd already decided to make it up them over the weekend.

"So, can't he plan your training sessions on his own?" Xander asked. "I mean, really, how much say do you get in this whole training thing anyway?"

"Knowing the Council, none," Buffy said gloomily. "They're really big on ignoring everything the Slayer has to say. And according to Merrick, most active Slayers train with their Watchers for like thirty hours a week."

Jesse whistled. "That's just harsh. I mean, how much practice does it take to be a Slayer anyway? 'Point, poke, dust. Do sexy victory dance.' End of training."

"The man's got a point," Xander said, jerking his thumb at Jesse. "In fact, you should just scrap all that other stuff and focus on the sexy victory dance. We could videotape it for you," he offered. "For improvement purposes, obviously."

"And get you a special outfit – something that doesn't cover too much skin," Jesse said dreamily. "Uh, so that it doesn't get in the way of the slaying," he added quickly, seeing her expression.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You guys are _such_ lobotomy candidates."

They'd reached the History classroom and stood facing the closed door. "Well, here it is," Buffy sighed. "Last stop on death row." She reached for the door handle, but Willow's hand suddenly reached out to pull hers back.

"Wait," she whispered anxiously, her expression troubled. "Do you hear that?"

It took a moment, but then Buffy heard the faint though unmistakable sound of voices speaking inside the room. Voices, plural. She couldn't make out the words, but she definitely heard two male voices; including Rayne's, which sounded a lot calmer than the other one. Whoever the second man was, he sounded absolutely furious.

"He's arguing with someone," she said, glancing at her friends. She knew they were all wondering the same thing she was: whether they should leave and come back later, or just go ahead and walk in. "It sounds pretty serious."

"It does," Willow agreed, "but he asked you to be here, so we can probably go in." She didn't seem too sure about it, though; especially when the stranger's voice rose even louder and they distinctly heard the words 'goddamn' and 'bastard'.

"Yeah," Jesse said, siding with Willow. "I mean, he might just be in there duking it out with Snyder over who has the biggest creep-out factor."

Xander raised an eyebrow. "And you'd wanna walk in on _that_?"

Jesse shrugged. "If we're really lucky, they'll get into an educational death-match and one of them will kill off the other one."

"Or better yet, they'll kill each other," Xander said, smiling cheerfully at the thought. "All right then – let's just walk away and leave 'em to it."

Buffy shook her head. "It's not Snyder in there, guys. I'd know his weasel-y nasal tones anywhere, and this other guy sounds… different." She had an odd feeling that the voice of the second man was one she'd heard before, but she couldn't put her finger on who exactly she thought it belonged to, or where and when she'd heard it. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate solely on the voices arguing behind the door.

Willow looked at her in concern. "Buffy? What's wrong?"

Her question was answered when Buffy gasped, her eyes snapping open. "I know that voice!" she hissed, glaring at the door. "Evil son of a bitch. I'll kill him."

Xander backed away slightly. "Whoa, hey, what's all this talk of killing? We're all anti-Rayne here, Buffy, but there's no need to get all Terminator on us."

"Not Rayne," Buffy bit out, still glaring at the door. "Wesley."

Jesse and Xander glanced at each other. "Who?"

But Willow, who'd heard the entire story of Buffy's summer in LA, gasped softly in dismay. "Oh no."

Buffy tried to open the door, and found it locked. "See?" Jesse said nervously. "Clearly, he doesn't want anyone barging in on him and his, uh, friend, so we should all just –"

His voice was cut off by the sound of wood splintering as Buffy put her shoulder to the door and forced it open. "Or – or we could do that," he said quietly, staring at the damage done to the doorframe. But then his attention was caught up completely in the strange scene going in the History classroom, and like the others, he stood staring in astonishment. _What the hell? _

Rayne stood with his right arm outstretched, gripping a dagger which was covered in arcane runes and glowing faintly. He held it pointed squarely in the chest of a lividly furious Wesley, whose own hands were raised in the air, evidently on Rayne's command. The two men were glaring at each other with utter loathing, and Rayne seemed only seconds away from sinking the dagger into Wesley's heart.

But that wasn't nearly as strange as the sight of the apparently lifeless body lying on the floor between the two Watchers – a body Buffy easily recognized as Ripper's.

---

Neither Wesley nor Rayne turned their heads to look at the teenagers, but they both obviously knew they were there, judging by the hardening of Rayne's features and the bitter smile that spread slowly across Wesley's face. "Hello, Slayer," he said pleasantly. "Nice of you to drop in."

"Get out of here, all of you," Rayne said hoarsely. "Now."

"Whoa, déjà vu," Buffy said, forcing herself to sound cheerful, even though she felt ready to snatch the dagger from Ripper's hand and stab Wesley herself. "I mean, if you're gonna make a habit of kicking us out, what's the point of even letting us in?"

"I didn't," Rayne said tightly. "That door was locked, remember? And now is not the time to make clever small talk, Buffy. Please wait outside while I … finish this."

"What, the way you 'finished' Ripper?" Buffy asked, gesturing towards his body. "I don't think so."

"Coming to my rescue, are you?" Wesley asked softly, though his eyes were still fixed on Rayne. "How touching. I had no idea you were so merci–"

"Shut up," Buffy said harshly. "Just _shut_ _up_. Do you think I give a damn about what happens to you?"

"Then you're not going to try and stop me?" Rayne said, glancing towards her briefly. He seemed relieved.

"No, I am," Buffy told him. "Because, believe it or not, I _do_ give a damn about what happens to you. And I don't want to see you go to jail for killing this scumbag."

"Do you have any idea what kind of man he is?" Rayne asked, pushing the dagger just a little harder against Wesley's chest, so that he flinched in pain. "What he's done? What he's tried to do?"

"Oh, that's rich," Wesley hissed. "Coming from the man who was willing to sell out his own Slayer for the sake of revenge."

Buffy stared at Rayne in shock. "What is he talking about?"'

"He agreed to tell me your whereabouts in exchange for the chance to get his revenge on poor Rupert," Wesley explained maliciously, "even though he knew I was no longer part of the Council and could very well be intending to harm you. We were supposed to meet tonight, but I thought it best to arrive early and unexpectedly, before my old friend here would have time to set up a trap." He glared at Rayne. "Turns out I needn't have bothered, since he's managed to double-cross me after all."

Buffy smiled faintly. "So the Council finally realized you're a raving lunatic and kicked you out, huh?"

Wesley actually turned his head to stare at her in disbelief. "Did you hear a single word I just said, girl? Your own Watcher was going to hand you over to me! He's just as 'bad' as I am – or worse!"

"Uh, no, actually, it's looking a lot like he was just going to kill you," she said cheerfully. "And somehow I find myself not caring. So color me _not_ fooled by your lame divide-and-conquer tactics, Wacko Wes."

Jesse leaned in towards her slightly. "So, just to clarify – we're on Rayne's side?"

She nodded, not taking her eyes off the two men. "Pretty much."

"Does that mean this other guy is going to die now?" Xander asked, pointing at Wesley. "'Cause it's always nice to have a little warning when something freak-out-worthy is about to happen, and an imminent murder definitely gets filed under 'Reasons to freak out'."

"Nobody's going to die," Buffy said calmly. "Not today, anyway."

"The dagger being pointed at my chest would suggest otherwise," Wesley said dryly. "Feel free to remove it at any time in the near future, by the way."

"You're not going to kill him," Buffy told Rayne. "I know it, and you know it. It's just not in you."

"Buffy, there's a _dead_ _body_ on the floor," Xander said incredulously. "So I'm thinking, it probably is in him."

"Ripper's not dead," Buffy said dismissively. "He's unconscious, but definitely alive."

She turned back to Rayne. "Ethan, please," she said softly. "Just put the dagger down."

If Rayne was surprised at the use of his given name, he didn't show it; and the grimly determined expression on his handsome face didn't change. "I'm sorry, Buffy. I really am. I have to do this." He tightened his grip on the dagger, preparing to stab Wesley with it.

Buffy went from standing still to moving forward in the blink of an eye, and Rayne's reaction time was no match for Slayer speed as she grabbed his wrist, forcing him to release the dagger. Wesley started to make a dash for the door, but Jesse put out his foot at just the right moment, tripping him up neatly.

Buffy glanced at the ex-Watcher sprawled on the floor. "Knock him out!" she told her friends urgently, struggling to keep the dagger out of Rayne's reach.

"With what?" Willow asked, panicking. "Ooh!" She spotted a heavy glass paperweight on Rayne's desk, grabbed it hastily and handed it to Xander.

"What, you want _me_ to do it?" Xander stared down at Wesley, who was quickly getting to his feet. _Oh, crap. _Xander closed his eyes and swung the paperweight wildly. Unbelievably, he heard a dull thud as it connected with Wesley's skull, and he opened them again to see that the ex-Watcher was lying face-down on the floor. "I did it!"

Jesse grinned. "Yeah, your aim was actually _on_ for once. It's an unseasonal Christmas miracle!"

Xander glared at him. "Dude, don't make me swing this thing at you."

They turned to find Buffy kneeling beside Rayne, who was evidently unconscious as well. "I had to knock him out," she explained to them ruefully. "He wasn't going to stop trying to get that dagger and I didn't want to have to hurt him."

"Hey, do you hear us complaining?" Jesse asked cheerfully. "I like these guys a lot better when they're out cold."

"But what do we do with them now?" Willow asked worriedly, staring down at the three men lying unconscious on the classroom floor.

Buffy shrugged, sighing. "That's a good question."

---

**Author's Note: **Hopefully this will all seem a little less weird once I get around to some Rayne/Wesley/Ripper POV in the next chapter. Feedback welcome (even anti-Riley feedback, which I totally see coming).


	22. The Gift

**Author's Note:** Like I've mentioned before, I was thinking of letting _Shadowland_ go, but thanks to the impressive stats and lovely reviews this fic has generated I've decided to see it through to the end. So, without any further ado – Chapter 22. :-)

**22. The Gift**

"Won't that hurt him?" Willow asked, her voice small and unsure, as she watched Angel tie an extra knot in the ropes that held Rayne strapped to one of the hard, highly polished wooden chairs in the mansion's dining room.

Close by, Wesley and Ripper were similarly bound to another pair of chairs. All three men were still unconscious.

Angel shrugged, and the movement was surprisingly eloquent. It expressed thinly veiled disdain, almost hatred. "I'd care, except I really don't."

"Hey," Buffy said softly, her voice carrying the faintest hint of admonition. "Rayne's on our side, remember? We like him."

"'Like him' might be stretching it, Buffster," Xander said, poking Rayne experimentally in the shoulder to see if he'd react. "At this point, I think we just hate him a little less than these other two weirdos."

Buffy and Angel had taken turns filling the others in on their experiences with Wesley and Ripper while the five of them brought the unconscious men to the mansion (it had required a wheelbarrow, a few sheets and quite a lot of heavy lifting, but somehow they'd managed to get it done).

"And what are we gonna do when they wake up?" Jesse asked. "Not that I have anything against the idea of keeping them tied up here permanently, but that seems a little…"

"Inhumane," Willow filled in.

"Actually, I was going to say 'illegal', but okay."

"I think we should call the Watcher's Council and have them pick up this scum," Angel said, pointing at Wesley. "They should've locked him up a long time ago. It's time they cleaned up their mess."

Buffy nodded in agreement, but she cast a troubled glance at the warlock. "What about Ripper, though? As far as I can tell, he's the only one of three who didn't try to commit a felony. We can't just hand him over to the Council."

"Setting him free doesn't seem like the best idea in the world either," Xander pointed out.

Buffy shrugged. "Once he wakes up, those ropes probably won't be enough to hold him anyway. Besides, he's a troublemaker, but he's not evil – it wouldn't be right for us to let the Council get their hands on him."

"All right then," Jesse said, rubbing his hands together. "Sounds like we've got a plan. So what's the Watcher's Council hotline number?"

"Only one way to find out," Angel said, turning to look at Rayne.

---

Angel's method for bringing Rayne out of unconsciousness was simple. He filled a bucket with ice-cold water, carried it carefully to the dining room, and tossed its entire contents into the Watcher's face.

Rayne snapped awake almost instantly, spluttering and gasping as the water dripped from his hair and chin. He glared at Angel, who was holding the now-empty bucket with an expression of serene satisfaction on his face. "See?" he said casually to Buffy. "He's wide awake, and we didn't even have to touch him."

"Very efficient," Buffy said, trying to keep herself from smiling. "How are you feeling?" she asked Rayne.

"Well, my face is completely numb," the Watcher said dryly. "And I'm a bit disappointed that I failed to kill that worthless bastard Wesley. _Again_. But other than that, I'm doing very well, thank you."

Buffy smiled faintly. "Sorry about foiling your homicide attempt and all."

"That's quite all right." For a moment, Rayne's features softened, enhancing his usually severe good looks. "I didn't really fancy going to prison, to be honest."

"So, if we untie you, you won't try to kill him again?" Willow asked tentatively.

Rayne shook his head. "I might kick him a few times, but that would hardly prove to be fatal."

"All right, so here's how this is going to work," Buffy said. "We're gonna untie you, you're gonna tell us how to contact the Watcher's Council, and they're gonna pick up your old pal Wesley here."

"What about Ripper?" Rayne asked, pronouncing the name with obvious distaste.

"We're setting him free." Buffy noticed the thunderous look on his face and smiled. "Hey, you didn't raise your hand when we voted. You snooze, you lose."

"I was _unconscious_," Rayne reminded her.

Jesse tutted disapprovingly. "Excuses, excuses."

---

A few minutes later, Rayne had been untied and was speaking curtly into a phone; he didn't waste any time with chitchat, but got straight down to the task of convincing the Council member on the other end of the line to send what he called 'a containment team' to Sunnydale. After he hung up, he spent a long moment glaring at the still-unconscious Ripper. "Do we really have to wake him?" he asked Buffy finally. "Couldn't we just load him onto the back of a truck and dump him on the highway or something?"

"Now there's a plan that just _reeks_ of compassion," Buffy said, giving him a quelling look. "Any other suggestions, Rambo?"

Rayne's eyebrows furrowed in genuine confusion. "Who?"

She sighed. "Never mind. Look, we need him out of here before your Council buddies arrive."

"Can I wake him?" Rayne asked, perking up at the prospect.

"No, I want that pleasure all for myself." Buffy smiled grimly, stepped closer to Ripper, and slapped him soundly across the face.

"Bloody hell!" The warlock's eyes snapped open, but it was a few moments before he could see through the tears of pain that welled up in his eyes. Buffy hadn't held back when she slapped him, and a bruise was already blooming on his cheek. "Oh, it's you," he muttered when he saw Buffy. "For a moment there I thought I was back at that bordello in Mexico."

"What are you talking –" she paused. "Actually, you know what, I don't even remotely want to know."

"Good, because it isn't really a kiddie-friendly story." Ripper's gaze focused blearily on Rayne. "What's _he_ doing here?"

"Fighting the urge to snap your neck," Rayne told him from between clenched teeth.

Ripper nodded mildly. "Yeah, thought it might be something like that. That big vein in your forehead's gone all purple. And look, it's throbbing now."

There was a pause while they all stared at the throbbing purple vein in Rayne's temple. "It does that whenever Ethan's got his knickers in a twist," Ripper informed them prosaically. "He'll start clenching his fists in a moment."

"Shut up," Rayne snapped, stopping his hands from clenching just in time. "Don't you dare speak about me as though you know me."

Ripper laughed dryly. "Ethan, mate, your own mum doesn't know you better than I do."

"Before you guys decide to go all _Brokeback Mountain_ on us, I think I should point out that the Council guys could be knocking on the door at any moment," Buffy said impatiently. "In other words, the sooner Ripper hauls his ass out of here, the better."

Angel noticed her discomfort, hidden from the others but obvious to him in the set of her slender back and the slight but unmistakable tenseness in her stance. She didn't want to be under the same roof as either Ripper or Wesley, that much was clear to him. He went to stand by her, his hand finding the curve of her shoulder almost automatically. Without turning to look at him, she lifted her own hand to his and let it rest there, her soft palm warming the back of his hand.

"Aw, now there's a touching picture," Ripper said, grinning crookedly. "Nice to see my little twist of the truth didn't do too much damage." He was referring to the altered version of Angel's history that he had told Buffy, leading her to believe that Angel was still soulless.

"Oh, please. Spare us the nice guy act. You would've loved it if Buffy had staked me before anyone managed to tell her the truth," Angel said angrily. Buffy tightened her grip on his hand and felt the anger drain away from him as quickly as it had come.

Ripper shrugged. "Never said I was a saint. You took my Gem, and I wanted revenge. But that's all in the past now, isn't it? Water under the bridge and all that."

"How about we throw _you_ under a bridge?" Rayne suggested darkly.

"Ooh, very sharp," Ripper shot back. "I'm absolutely _crushed_ by the weight of your wittiness, Ethan old boy." He glanced down at the ropes that held him tied to the chair and chuckled to himself. "Is that the best you could do?" He snapped his fingers and the ropes loosened, slithering to the floor before vanishing in a brief puff of smoke.

Ripper stretched, obviously glad to be standing upright. "So I suppose this is good-bye then."

"Thankfully, yes," Buffy said. She pointed towards the hallway. "The door's that way."

"Please don't write," Xander added cheerfully. "Or call. Or, you know, attempt any form of communication whatsoever."

"Don't worry, I'm not planning on it," Ripper said dryly. "But before I go…" he turned to Buffy thoughtfully. "Right, I realize you're not exactly my biggest fan, Slayer – but you passed up the opportunity to do away with me, and you didn't hand me over to those tweed-wearing twats at the Council. So I owe you one. Or two."

Buffy was silent, waiting for him to continue. He hesitated for a long moment, but finally his hand moved, making a strangely complicated gesture; the air around his hand seemed to blur for a moment, and then he was holding out an extremely familiar piece of jewelry.

"Here," he said, holding out the Gem of Amarra to Buffy. "Take it quickly, before I regain my sanity and decide to keep it."

Buffy took the Gem, momentarily shocked into silence by the unexpected gift. She stared at Ripper, wide-eyed, and he shrugged. "Like I said, I'm no saint, but I have my moments. Anyway, that's not all I'm giving you." He shocked Buffy further by moving in close to her and whispering something in her ear. The others couldn't hear what he said, but when he stepped back Buffy's face had become an unreadable mask, her features utterly expressionless.

"If you're quite finished now, you might want to think about _leaving_," Rayne said pointedly.

Buffy sensed that Angel was looking at her, a mixture of concern, mild alarm and curiosity floating in the dark pools of his eyes, but she refused to acknowledge his gaze and focused instead on Ripper. _Sorry baby, _she thought half-sarcastically, _but_ _I'm just not ready to share. _

"Bye," she said softly. Her tone carried just the faintest hint of gratitude, and Ripper nodded, understanding. He glanced briefly at Rayne, started to say something, but stopped himself, muttering something about how it was 'too late'. With a brief, jaunty wave at the assembled Scoobies, he turned and seemed to melt into the air, his form simply disappearing as he walked away.

"Show-off," Rayne muttered.

---

**Author's Note: **This chapter was shorter than usual, but I just wanted to resolve the Ripper/Rayne/Wesley dilemma before moving onto the next arc of the story. Also, I think most of the chapters I write from now on will be pretty short (closer to the length of Chapter 1 than Chapter 21), but that will hopefully enable me to keep up the updates.

Pretty please, review. :-)


	23. The Pain

**23. The Pain**

Buffy lay on her back in the damp grass of the mansion's front lawn, her head cushioned comfortably on Angel's broad chest, staring up at a clear morning sky smattered with wispy white clouds and crowned by the broad, bright disc of the sun. If she squinted just a little, the sharp brightness of the sun softened until it became a golden orb of molten light, glowing against the backdrop of an endless, pale blue velvet curtain.

"Wow," she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's so beautiful out here."

"Yes," Angel agreed quietly, but he wasn't looking upwards. His eyes were fixed on her face, awed by the way the sunlight highlighted her delicate features. He raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles; it was more the ghost of a kiss than anything else, but it still sent faint thrills across her skin, and she turned to smile at him with glowing eyes. "So, on a scale of one to ecstatic, this is about as happy as I've ever been," she told him. "Just so you know."

He smiled, his face undergoing a subtle transformation as he did so until he appeared almost completely human, and far younger than his true age. "I hope you realize I'm going to take all the credit for that," he teased. There was the shadow of a laugh in his voice, rippling underneath the surface of his usually expressionless tone, and it tugged at her heart in a way she couldn't quite define.

She lifted a hand to his face, pressing her thumb lightly to his mouth as though she was trying to lock his smile in place. "I love you," she said, firmly, as if it was something he needed to be reassured of. "More than anything."

The slight widening of his dark eyes and the softening of his expression let her know that he was touched, but his smile didn't change. "More than Pop Tarts?" he asked, with the faint not-quite-audible laughter still bubbling beneath his words.

"More than _anything_," she repeated, with emphasis. He wrapped his arms around the slender frame of her body, gathering her to him with a tenderness that made her breath catch in her throat. For a moment they were silent, allowing their happiness to soak into and through them as the sun continued its steady ascent in the sky above their heads, the pale light of dawn transitioning magnificently into full-blown, vividly bright daylight. Angel was completely caught up in the sight of the sun rising and the delicious sensation of warmth against his skin as its rays poured over him. With the Gem hanging on its chain around his neck, he was completely safe.

And then Buffy brought him out of his contemplative mood by lifting her head from his chest long enough to say, "Well, except maybe Mr. Gordo."

"I'm competing for your affection against a toy pig?" Angel asked, turning away from the sun to look down at her with feigned outrage.

"A really cute, cuddly, plush toy pig," Buffy corrected, sounding slightly offended by Angel's assessment of Mr. Gordo. "And he's very lovable. Which is more than I can say for you, Mr. Bloodsucking Night Fiend."

"Fine," Angel groused. "Run away with your one true love, Mr. Gordo the cuddly super-pig. See if I care."

She laughed, kissing his chin apologetically. "I'm sorry," she whispered, in what she hoped was a suitably penitent tone of voice.

Angel glanced down at her wide-eyed, mock-humble expression, and the amusement that he'd been suppressing all morning spilled over into a ripple of sincere, deep-seated laughter completely unlike his usual brief chuckle. His entire body shook as he laughed and Buffy clung to him lightly, pressing her face to his chest so that she could feel it vibrate under her cheek. "For the record," Angel said, once his laughter had died down, "I love you more than anything, with _no exceptions_."

"Well, that's because you don't have any stuffed animals," Buffy reasoned. "Which is pretty sad, by the way."

"I think somehow I'll manage to survive without them," Angel said dryly.

Buffy shook her head, sighing. "Cold-hearted pessimist."

Angel gave her a fleeting half-grin. "Pig-hugging hippie."

"Cynic," Buffy retorted.

"Idealist," Angel shot back.

"Vampire."

"Vampire-lover."

"Um…"

"Yes?"

"Wait, I'll think of something."

"Sorry, your time's up." Angel smiled triumphantly. "1-0 to the pessimist."

---

"It can't be done." The demon Narigh – a small, long-limbed creature with wrinkled blue skin and a pair of large obsidian-like horns crowning his rather oddly shaped head – made a quick, deferential movement that could almost have qualified as a bow. "It is quite impossible."

"_I'll_ make that call, thanks. And I say it's perfectly bleeding possible. It's been done before."

"With all due respect, if he really is wearing the Gem, then that will make my task immeasurably difficult. You see, the Gem renders its wearer –"

"I know what it does," Spike growled. "I've heard that whole song and dance before. And yeah, he's definitely got it now; the seers made that part pretty bloody clear. But it can't protect him from what I want you to do, you stupid git."

"And how, exactly, can you be so very sure?" Narigh asked, with just a touch of hurt pride in his tone. He wasn't used to being called names by the creatures who came to him for help in matters of magick and the occult – though his appearance was unimpressive, the demon was known to be an extremely powerful conjurer. But then again, none of Narigh's other customers had ever quite resembled this lean, scarred vampire, with his foul mouth and vividly bright hair. Usually he would be tempted to ask the vampire to leave, but there was something in Spike's eyes that cautioned Narigh against antagonizing him. They resembled blue coals in his stark face, smoldering with some dark emotion that went deeper than any common form of pain.

"That's not really any of your business, blue boy. You just get cracking on that nifty little incantation, and let me handle the rest of the plan."

The look in those eyes was more than enough to make Narigh glad that he was not standing in Angel's place.

---

"So, where are we going today?"

Angel let his eyes open slowly, luxuriating in the knowledge that for the first time in over two centuries, he was in serious danger of being lulled into a midday doze by the soothing warmth of the sunshine and the soft cushioning offered by the grass beneath him. "Do we have to go somewhere?"

Buffy looked shocked. "It's a Saturday! We can't stay at home on a Saturday – that's for geezers and social rejects. So, yes, Captain Clueless, we _have_ to go somewhere." She prodded him gently in the shoulder. "Come on, get up."

Angel's eyes drifted shut again and he smiled faintly. "No."

"Are you seriously planning on lying around on the lawn all day?" she demanded. When he nodded, she sat up quickly. "All right then, I'll just go have some weekend-flavored fun all by my lonesome."

Without opening his eyes, Angel reached out to take a firm hold of her wrist, pulling her back down onto his body. "You're not going anywhere," he murmured, wrapping both arms around her.

"Tyrant," Buffy groused, pretending she didn't love the fact that there wasn't any inch of space between her body and his. She shifted experimentally against him and had the satisfaction of hearing a very quiet groan. It was just as well that Angel couldn't see the satisfied little smile on her face, because then he'd probably realize that she wasn't planning on letting him sleep.

---

"What do you mean, she wouldn't want to hang out with us?" Xander crossed his arms, looking suitably offended at Willow's suggestion. "Of course she would. The _definition_ of 'best friends' is 'people you always wanna hang out with'. Right?" he asked, glancing at Jesse for support.

Jesse shrugged. "Sorry, Xanman, but I'm with Will on this one. She's probably busy today."

"Busy doing what?" Xander asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"Well, her creature-of-the-night boyfriend just became completely immune to sunlight," Willow said, smiling slightly. "So of course she wants to spend the day with him."

"How do you know that?" Xander demanded. "Did she say so?"

It was only then that Willow noticed the anxious, slightly panicked look in his eyes and the way one hand was clenched tightly at his side. _Oh, my god. If I didn't know any better I'd think…_ "Xander – why is this bothering you so much?"

"What?" He attempted a casual, disbelieving laugh. "It's not _bothering_ me, Will. Do I look bothered? Nu-uh. 'Cause I'm completely non-bothered. As is evident by my completely relaxed appearance and … air of not-bothered-ness."

"Dude, that right there will live on in my memory as the worst lie ever told." Jesse's eyes lit up with sudden realization. "I get it," he said slowly. "You're into her! That's why you don't like the idea of her spending all day getting frisky with Angel!"

"Okay, time-out, Psychic Madam – did I _say_ I was into her? And – and what's this crazy talk of friskiness? You don't really think they're doing anything frisky, do you, because that would just be…" He saw the way the others were looking at him and let the sentence trail into silence.

Willow's expression was intensely sympathetic, while Jesse's was an odd mixture of amusement and pity. It was Willow who spoke first. "Xander, I'm sorry."

"What's there to be sorry about?" Xander shrugged, and suddenly he seemed weary, all traces of his usual cheerful goofiness gone. "I'm in love with her, she's in love with someone else. It's not exactly the most original story in the world."

"Tough break, man," Jesse said. "But hey, there are other fish in the dating ocean, right?"

"Yeah," Xander agreed humorlessly. "All I gotta do is find one that looks like her, smells like her, smiles the way she does, does that cute little tilt of her head while she's talking –" he stopped abruptly, burying his face in his hands.

"You'll get over this," Willow said tentatively. "Eventually. I mean, it might take a little time, but it'll happen." She glanced at Jesse, prompting him to say something supportive.

"Will's right," Jesse said, giving Xander what he hoped was a comforting pat on the shoulder. "It's just a phase."

Xander didn't respond, but he finally lifted his face from his hands. "Listen, guys, I'm not really feeling up to hanging out right now," he said, without looking at either of them. "How about we do this some other time?"

"Sure," Willow said gently.

"Yeah, not a problem," Jesse added, nodding. But after Xander left, he and Willow exchanged helpless looks - because it was clear to both of them that they _did_ have a problem on their hands.

---

"Well?" Spike paced the cramped, dusty room that served as Narigh's living space, throwing impatient glances towards the middle of the room, where the demon sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a circle of black wax candles.

"Be patient," Narigh hissed. "This will take time." His eyes were fixed on the ancient tome spread open in his lap and he muttered the words of the incantation under his breath while his clawed fingers drew powerful runes in the air with quick, practiced movements.

Spike exhaled loudly, coming to a halt just outside the circle to glare at the demon. "Sorry to point out the obvious, mate, but nothing seems to be _happening_."

Narigh growled. With a flick of his wrist, he drew a rune in Spike's direction, and the vampire was lifted off his feet and slammed into a nearby wall. "I _said_, be patient!"

And for once, Spike decided not to argue.

---

"Behast," Buffy mumbled, her words lost in a sigh as Angel kissed her lips for what seemed like the thousandth time. His mouth had been finding ever-more inventive ways to explore hers as the day slowly wore on and the sun continued its progress across the sky above their heads. Not that they noticed; as far as they were concerned, the entire world seemed to have ground to a halt around them.

With one final, fleeting little kiss to the corner of her mouth, Angel pulled away long enough for her to try again. "Breakfast."

"What? Oh. Right." His achingly handsome features took on an expression of almost comical disappointment. "You have to do the eating thing."

"Mm-hmm. And the drinking thing, and the going to the bathroom thing." Buffy's nose wrinkled in a way he found almost unbearably cute. "Sometimes being human kind of sucks."

He kissed her nose. "Go. I can wait."

"I could bring you back some blood," she offered. "We're out of otter, but there's some decently fresh lamb in the fridge. And by 'decently fresh' I mean that it probably hasn't gone all coagulated and gross yet."

He shook his head, smiling faintly. "No, I'm good."

"Okay." She leaned in to nuzzle the smooth white expanse of his neck before pulling away reluctantly, forcing her body to relinquish its comfortable position nestled alongside his. "Give me a minute."

"Or thirty," he teased, earning himself a light slap on the shoulder as she stood up. He watched her walk away with a sense of loss and longing so intense it almost frightened him. He'd fallen harder for this one young girl than any other human creature he'd come across in two hundred and forty years of existence, and the sheer intensity of the feelings she inspired in him was enough to make him wonder if maybe he'd lost all perspective. His world used to be a place of dark alleys and shadowy corners, with only rats and the occasional stray passer-by for company – but now his entire existence seemed to be centered around Buffy. That was strange enough, but not quite as strange as the fact that he didn't mind at all. Being with her brought him fully into contact with the human world that he'd been ignoring for so long, and seeing her happy made him happy in a way he couldn't ever remember experiencing before. It was all he needed. _She_ was all he needed.

He had just finished pursuing this blissful train of thought when a sudden excruciating pain exploded in his body, shredding its way viciously through every fiber of every nerve-ending he possessed.

The pain was so searingly acute that he couldn't even open his mouth to call out to Buffy.

---

**Author's Note: **Yes, I've completely avoided the "what Ripper said" issue and yes, I'm laying the foundation for some major BA-flavored angst. I am a bad, bad ma– girl. :-P


	24. The Mistake

**Author's Note: **As always, feedback has made me insanely happy. :-) When I ended the last chapter I had three potential continuations in mind: one of them I ruled out because it was predictable (the Angelus Option), and the other one I'm going to keep secret just in case I decide to use it as a plot device in future (the third is obviously the one I'm using in this chapter). And there will be significantly less angst in this chapter than I'd originally planned, but I won't make any promises about the next chapter.

**24. The Mistake**

Buffy found herself humming lightly as she raided the kitchen cupboards, and realized with a little jolt of happy surprise that she'd been doing it ever since she came indoors. _So apparently, potential side-effects of being totally head over heels in love with the man of your dreams include humming corny show tunes,_ she thought, smiling. _Which would be totally lame if it wasn't so much fun._ She ate so quickly that she might as well have been sucking up the food with a vacuum cleaner, tossed her plate into the washing machine without bothering to rinse it, and practically flew out the front door.

"Okay, so now I'm all tanked up on food of the unhealthy snack variety," she announced cheerfully. "And FYI, we're out of Doritos as well as otter's blood – I think we might have to do a store run soon."

She paused, expecting a response; but Angel was silent, and from what she could see of his body he hadn't even acknowledged her presence by lifting his head from the grass. _I can't believe this – he fell asleep! That's so sneaky._

"Listen, Yawny McSnooze, this is totally unacceptable boyfriend behavior," she said sternly, settling down next to him on the grass. "You're supposed to be waiting eagerly for my return and gushing about how much you've missed me, not dozing off."

When he didn't move, she leaned in close so that her breath would tickle his ear while she spoke. "I _know_ you can hear me. So either you get with the alertness, or you're spending the night out here all alone, buster."

Angel made absolutely no sign of having heard her, and for the first time she began to feel a little apprehensive. "Angel?" she whispered, shaking his shoulder gently. "Angel, come on, quit it. You're starting to freak me out."

There was absolutely no response, and Buffy's apprehension developed into actual fear. "Angel?"

As she was bending over him, his eyes suddenly snapped open, and she found herself staring into those familiar dark irises with an overwhelming sense of relief. "God, you scared me," she breathed, smiling. "What was that, some sort of weird reaction test? Did I pass?"

For a long moment he stared at her, his eyes tracing her features repeatedly as an expression of puzzlement formed slowly on his face. She didn't let her smile slip, even though the way he was looking at her made her just a little nervous. "What's with the silent treatment? Angel?"

When he finally spoke, the words that came out of his mouth were so different from what Buffy expected to hear that she was stunned into silence.

"Oh, bloody hell."

---

Narigh breathed deeply and felt his entire body relax as the powerful rush of magickal energy that had gripped him while he spoke the words of the incantation slowly dissipated. "It is done."

He rose to his feet, glancing over at where Spike still lay slumped against the wall. "I've kept my part of our bargain – it's time for you to keep yours."

When there was no response, the demon stalked over to the vampire's body and lifted him with a simple levitation spell, knowing that he wouldn't be able to do it physically. Although he was an extremely powerful conjurer, the demon's physical strength was almost non-existent. "I'm expecting full payment for my services," he started to say, but his voice faltered when he realized that the vampire was still unconscious – he'd initially assumed Spike was pretending, but it was very clear to him now that the spell rune had hit him harder than expected.

"Hmm." Narigh let the vampire's body drop to the ground and stepped back to contemplate his slumped form for a moment. "Interesting." With a negligent wave of his hand he sent a spell rune into the vampire's body to jolt him awake. The vampire woke with a sharp, pained inhalation, which Narigh knew was completely unnecessary given his undead constitution, and most likely a reaction to the spell.

It was almost instantly clear to the conjurer that although the vampire lying on the floor in front of him was staring at him with Spike's blue eyes and frowning with Spike's mouth, the spirit residing within was no longer that of the angry British vampire.

"Ah," Narigh said softly. "How very … problematic."

The vampire got quickly to his feet, staring at Narigh with an intense wariness that showed absolutely no signs of recognition. Before Narigh could physically react, the vampire tackled him to the ground, pulling back a fist in preparation to punching him in the face. "Where the hell am I?" he growled, his face morphing into a fanged, yellow-eyed mask of fury. "Where's Buffy?"

Narigh chuckled dryly, and the vampire's body was lifted into the air as though he was being pulled by invisible strings. The demon rose and dusted himself off with great dignity before turning a steely gaze on the vampire.

"The question you should be asking," Narigh said slowly, "isn't _where_ you are. It's _who_."

---

Buffy's hand flew to her mouth in shock. She recognized that accent, even when it was spoken with Angel's heartbreakingly familiar voice. It took a moment for her Slayer instincts to kick in, but once they did she didn't even need to think about what she was doing – her foot planted itself on his neck and she leaned in close enough to say: "Move, and I'll snap your neck like a twig."

The vampire glared up at her, but he didn't make any attempt to fight her off. "What kind of bollocks is this, Slayer? How did I get here?"

She stared at him in silence for a long moment, trying to quell the tide of emotion that was threatening to overwhelm her completely. She was looking down at Angel's face, at his eyes, and part of her still felt the familiar tug of affection that would usually prompt her to kiss him, or run her fingers through his hair. But the rest of her was horrifically aware that something was wrong, and that the person staring at her through Angel's fathomless dark eyes wasn't Angel at all.

"What did you do to him?" she asked, hoping her voice didn't sound as insecure and off-balance as she felt.

The vampire's expression grew thunderous, but from the set of his mouth it didn't seem like he was planning on replying. Buffy increased the pressure on his neck, ignoring the internal stab of pain it caused her to do so, and he relented. "Nothing," he said from between gritted teeth. "The incantation must've been buggered up by that damn Gem. So don't worry, Slayer, your precious Peaches is safe – for now," he added dangerously.

"What incantation?"

"The one to bring ol' Angelus back, _obviously_."

"You tried to use an incantation to bring Angelus back?" Buffy repeated, barely containing her fury enough to keep herself from hurting him.

"Was I speaking Chinese, Slayer? Yeah, I tried. But like I said, it didn't work – although whatever mojo you pulled to get me here obviously did."

_He doesn't realize, _she thought, shocked. _He has no idea that he's in Angel's body. _"Do you really think I'm behind this?"

"Behind my _kidnapping_, you mean?" he said angrily. "I'm going to take a wild guess here and say yeah, you bloody well are. One moment I'm with that blue demon chap, then there's a whole lot of pain and suddenly I'm lying here. Obviously you pulled a teleportation spell or something to get me here, and now you're gonna dust me." He spread his arms out, offering a clear shot at his chest. "Go ahead, then. End my misery. Not like I got anything left to stick around for now that Dru's gone."

Buffy stood motionless, gripped with horror at the very idea of driving her makeshift stake into Angel's beloved, familiar body. The mere mental image that presented itself in her mind was enough to make her shudder. "I can't," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Spike was staring at her intensely, and the animosity that had established itself in his manner towards her momentarily subsided into something marginally more civil. "You goin' soft in your old age, Slayer?"

"Hey!" She was caught by a fleeting, startling urge to laugh, but it disappeared quickly and left her feeling faintly disgusted with herself. "Believe me, Platinum Wonder, I'd give anything to introduce your chest to the business end of Mr. Pointy."

"Well, it's not like I'm putting up a fight here, Slayer – what with being completely sodding heartbroken and miserable. So why don't you?"

Buffy sighed. "Because that's not your chest."

---

"I can't believe this."

Narigh shrugged. "It is unfortunate, but until I discover exactly what went wrong with the incantation – which could take quite a while – it cannot be reversed. And besides, your counterpart would have to be present in order for you to regain control of your body."

"That isn't really what I wanted to hear," Angel growled, trying to ignore the surge of strange sensations involved in being in somebody else's body – every few minutes his skin would tingle fiercely, almost as though Spike's body sensed an intruder and was trying to force him out. "He could be anywhere!"

"Actually, he is most likely in the very same location you were in before the… _mistake_ occurred."

And it was then that it him. "Buffy. He's with Buffy." Angel pulled open the door and stepped out, only to retreat hastily when he realized that the sun was still up outside – and he wasn't wearing the Gem. "Damn it!"

"You can track him down after sunset," Narigh said, unperturbed. "In all likelihood, he won't have gone far."

Angel clenched his fists, trying to reign in his frustration. _Yes, but only God knows what he'll try to do to Buffy while I'm stuck here._

---

"Oh, for crying out loud. This is just disgusting."

"Agreed." Buffy's nose wrinkled. "Hearing your annoying accent coming out of Angel's mouth is just about as gross as it gets."

"Actually, I was referring to the fact that the poofter's forehead is even more enormous than I'd thought," Spike muttered, prodding at the aforementioned forehead in amazement. "It's the bloody White Cliffs of Dover up here."

Buffy smacked him on the shoulder, glaring. "How about you do less talking and more walking, body-snatcher?"

They were walking down one of Sunnydale's sunlit main streets, on their way to the demon Narigh's lair – or at least that's where Spike _said_ they were going. Buffy was in full Slayer-alertness mode, since she trusted Spike just about as much as she liked him and she realized he could well be trying to lead her into a trap.

"You think I wanted this to happen?" Spike looked down at Angel's body, still unaccustomed to its height. "I feel like I'm walking around stilts and wearing a sodding pillow strapped to my chest."

"Are you calling my boyfriend beefy?" Buffy asked, insulted. It wasn't usually the kind of comment she'd object to, but the way Spike said it had made it sound offensive.

Spike shrugged with Angel's broad shoulders. "Your words, Slayer, not mine. Still, this whole poxy business does have its perks." He fingered the Gem, smiling. "Being invincible _almost_ makes up for the deformed forehead."

"The only reason I'm not snatching that thing off you right now is –"

"You don't want Captain Forehead's body getting crisped," Spike said dryly. "Yeah, I kinda had that figured out already, Buffy."

She stopped dead, turning to stare at him. "What did you just call me?"

He stared back at her, dark eyes wide. "Bloody hell. Guess this body isn't the only thing I've borrowed off the poofter."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, panicking slightly. "And why do I get the feeling it bodes a whole lot of _not good_?"

Spike didn't reply; he was squinting into some invisible middle distance, brow furrowed with concentration. "Who's Mr. Gordo?" he asked finally, peering at Buffy.

"Oh, my God. You _stole_ Angel's memories!"

"I did not," Spike said, affronted. "There's not a lot of 'em, and they're not proper vivid memories, they're more like … imprints of the real thing. It's hard to explain."

"So you, what, _inherited_ a bunch of – of memory copies, or something? Do you have any idea how _Twilight Zone_ that sounds?"

"I do, actually. It's right up there with making a deal with a master of demons, which is –"

"'Crazy as a soup sandwich'," Buffy finished, quoting one of her favorite _Twilight Zone_ narrations. "I love that episode."

"Yeah, me too."

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Spike gestured up the street they were walking along. "Shouldn't be much further now."

"Good," Buffy said empathetically. _Because this whole getting-along-with-Spike thing is starting to seriously creep me out. And I want my boyfriend back. _

---

When a booming knock on the door broke the silence in the cramped room Narigh called home, the demon quickly held up a hand, signaling to Angel to hold still and keep quiet. The vampire's eyes narrowed, but he didn't object, stepping back to let Narigh answer the door.

"Yes, I thought it might be you." The demon ushered his guests in with an elegant wave of his clawed hand. "You may enter."

It barely took a second for Angel to sweep Buffy into an embrace so close it was almost crushing, and she clung to him, ignoring Spike's audible protests in the background. To her surprise, she was almost as intensely relieved to find that Spike hadn't tried to lead her into a trap as she was to discover that Angel was apparently unharmed by the body-swap. But she shut this strange realization out of her mind, focusing instead on how much she was looking forward to having Angel's spirit restored to his body.

She let him bury his face in her neck, murmuring endearments into her skin, but when he tried to kiss her she pulled away, stepping back so rapidly that she barely even realized she was doing it. It took a moment for the hurt to register on his face – it was strange to see such a vulnerable emotion expressed with Spike's sharp, unyielding features – but when it did she was instantly regretful. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's just… you look like him. You _are_ him. I want to ignore that, but I can't."

He nodded, and she knew he understood; but the hurt was still lurking under the surface of those bright blue eyes. "You're right," he said hoarsely. "This swap… it didn't just happen to our bodies."

"Yeah, we already worked that out, thanks," Spike snapped. "Any other pearls of wisdom you want to share now that you've become the Master of the Completely Bloody Obvious?"

Angel turned a cold glare on him. "I'd call you an idiot, Spike, but then I'd only be proving your point."

"Ooh, now there's a stinger. However will I salvage my wounded pride?"

"Would you two _please_ act your ages?" Buffy said impatiently. "There'll be enough time for ripping each other apart when we've fixed this."

Neither of them seemed to hear her. "I bet you're loving this," Angel growled. "Now you get what you've always wanted – the chance to be me."

"Yeah, I was just _dying_ to prance around as some uptight, broody, cradle-robbing ponce who spends all his time slobbering over a Slayer who's barely out of diapers –"

"Hey!" Buffy protested, but she was ignored again as the two vampires glared at each other with unadulterated hatred. At Spike's last comment Angel had raised his fist, but the realization that he'd only be hitting himself kept him from striking the first blow. "What's wrong, Peaches?" Spike asked. "Scared to put a dent in this massive forehead? It couldn't really make you any uglier, could it?"

"That's _it_." Angel punched his opponent squarely on the jaw and Spike staggered backwards before regaining his balance and taking a swing at Angel's head – or rather, his own head.

Buffy yelled at them to stop it, but it was Narigh who finally forced them apart. He separated them with a casual wave of his hand and stepped in between them. "Now, I'm sure we can find a way to reverse the faulty incantation that doesn't involve harming anyone. If you two could just – "

It was at this point that Spike, beside himself with fury, decided to aim a sledgehammer blow at Angel, completely forgetting that he'd only be harming himself. But it was also at this point that Narigh moved – just enough to put himself in the path of Spike's fist.

Spike's blow connected with Narigh's head accompanied by a sickening crunch, and there was stunned silence after the demon's body hit the ground. Although another vampire could have withstood Spike's punch with relative ease, the demon clearly hadn't been in possession of a vampire's level of strength.

None of them needed to check to see if he was unconscious or not; they'd all seen enough deaths to know that the demon wouldn't be getting up again.

---

**Author's Note: **It's pretty darn late as I'm writing this and sleep hasn't been high on my priority list lately, so please forgive any typos/mistakes – I'll fix them as soon as I'm feeling a little less like Lurch from the Addams Family and a little more like … uh, someone who's very bright-eyed and alert. (Think Pollyanna, or maybe Katie Couric).

And as usual, reviews equals e-goodness.


	25. The Brotherhood

**Author's Note:** Thanks to everyone who reviewed, you guys made my day (which is a nicely mature way of saying that I spent approximately twenty-four hours wandering around with a huge-ass grin plastered to my face and tripping over stuff). This chapter doesn't include a lot of action, but that'll probably be balanced out by the next chapter.

**25. The Brotherhood**

By the time she'd made it into the well-lit warmth of the mansion's front hall, Buffy was fairly sure that she was teetering on the verge of madness, or at least a minor mental breakdown. After the brief moment of silence that had followed Narigh's untimely demise, Angel and Spike had kept up a non-stop verbal sparring match as they made their way through the otherwise quiet streets of uptown Sunnydale. Buffy still shuddered at the thought that any of Sunnydale's calmly respectable (and stubbornly ordinary) inhabitants might have overheard their argument, which included such choice words as 'murderer' and 'demon'.

Having outstripped them long ago, she waited for them to make their way up the mansion's garden path as she stood in the front doorway. Even though she was well prepared for what she'd see when they came striding through the garden gate, they were still a strange sight.

From a distance, Spike appeared to be a broad-shouldered, dark-haired figure who moved with the easy, careless lope of a smaller man accustomed to a shorter stride; and beside him Angel was a leonine, lean-limbed creature whose movements had the studied deliberation of a physically imposing man and the unconscious grace of a gentleman – although, with his dyed platinum hair and black leather outfit, he was apparently neither.

She'd been hoping that their spat would have ended – or at least simmered down a little – by the time they came within earshot, but to her dismay they were still going at it. If anything, the argument had only become more heated and spiteful. It didn't take long for Buffy to decide she didn't want to hear any more of it; and having come to that conclusion, she stepped back briskly into the hall and shut the front door.

When the vampires heard the distinct sound of the front door being locked, they stopped dead.

"Did your girlfriend just lock us out?" Spike asked, staring blankly at the door.

Angel silenced Spike with a swift icy glance and tapped cautiously on the door. "Buffy?" When there was no response, he knocked again. "Buffy?"

"You guys can come in when you've stopped acting like Sid and Nancy," she called through the door, firmly. "Until then you're just gonna have to rough it, smurf-style. Okay?"

"No, not okay!" Spike bellowed. "I haven't got the faintest sodding idea what you're on about, Slayer!"

"I'm pretty sure I wasn't stuttering," Buffy responded crisply. "But if your rusty 19th-century brain seriously can't deal, here's the simple version: either the kindergarten attitude goes kaput, or you two are spending the night outdoors re-enacting most of _The Edge._"

Spike turned to Angel helplessly. "Was any of that even in English?"

Angel sighed. "Basically, she said she wants us to stop arguing," he explained simply. "And she refuses to let us in until we start acting more civilized."

Despite himself, Spike was faintly impressed. "I can't believe you actually understood that bunch of naff girly mumbo-jumbo."

"Yeah, well, I happen to be a huge fan of the girl behind all that 'naff girly mumbo-jumbo'," Angel said, with a calm defensiveness that belied his fierce, almost automatic urge to protect Buffy from anything that might hurt her – even one of Spike's slight, careless verbal insults.

"Now there's a stunning news-bulletin," Spike said dryly. His expression was an odd mixture of envy and scorn as he looked at his grandsire. "Y'know, you're even starting to talk like her."

Angel shrugged, smiling faintly. "Guess she's rubbed off on me."

"Yeah, I bet she has," Spike snickered.

Angel rolled his eyes. "And the Shining Example of Maturity award goes to…"

"See?" Spike crowed triumphantly. "That's _exactly_ what I'm talking about. I give it a week before you two poor sods are wearing matching polyester outfits and spending your days feeding pigeons in a park somewhere."

"I'm not even going to ask what that means. If you've got a point, get to it."

"I'm just sayin', you two have got 'old married couple' written all over you." He paused. "Except of course that _you'll _never get old, and _she'll _never get married."

"Run that second part by me again," Angel said slowly. He didn't want to appear too interested in anything his grandchilde had to say, but Spike's comment had definitely caught his attention.

"Well, it's obvious, innit? Now that the pair of you have gone all starry-eyed and Shakespearean, the poor bird won't want to tie herself down to anyone else. And we both know the chances of her ever sauntering into a bloody chapel with you are less than nil, so Goldilocks in there is headed for spinsterhood. She just hasn't cottoned on to it yet."

Having finished his surprising soliloquy, Spike lapsed into silence. And despite his best efforts, Angel found himself unable to respond to the other vampire's words – because for once in his less-than-exemplary life, Spike was right.

---

The vampires were surprised when, less than half an hour after Buffy had delivered her ultimatum, the front door slid open and a familiar pretty face looked out at them. "I guess you can't actually stay out all night," she said reluctantly, leaving the door open before disappearing indoors again.

Spike sauntered through the doorway easily, but when Angel tried to cross the threshold he found himself being held back as though by an invisible wall. The mansion was barring him from entering, and it didn't take long to figure out why – although his body technically counted as an inhabitant, Spike's body didn't. And Buffy's words apparently weren't specific enough to count as an invitation.

It was odd to see Spike's signature smirk spreading across his own face as the younger vampire realized that Angel needed to be invited in, but Angel managed to quell his irritation enough to ignore Spike's expression. "Buffy, could you come out here for a minute?"

She appeared in the doorway almost instantly. "I'm guessing you're not standing out there 'cause you were gripped by a sudden urge to admire the doorstep," she said.

Angel smiled faintly. "No offense to the doorstep, but no."

The troubled expression on her face let him know what she was thinking before she voiced the thought out loud. "I'm not too sure I like the idea of giving the Peroxide Crusader a free ticket into our house," she said, giving Spike a distasteful look.

"Not like I'd be jostlin' to come back here anyways," Spike retorted, before wandering off down the hall.

"We'll uninvite him as soon as we've switched back again," Angel assured her, ignoring Spike's comment.

Buffy nodded. "You can come in," she said softly. As he passed her on his way in, he lifted a hand to her cheek in a brief, gentle caress that had become a habit during their time together. She wouldn't meet his eyes, and although she allowed the caress, the perfectly motionless way she held her body indicated hidden discomfort. _He's Angel,_ she reminded herself sharply. _Angel, the be-all, end-all love of my life. He might not look like himself right now, but that shouldn't matter. _

She wished that it didn't, but she couldn't delude herself out of facing the fact that she would much rather be touched by Angel's hand than Spike's – no matter whose spirit happened to be controlling that hand.

"I should be patrolling," she said, still avoiding Angel's gaze.

"I'll come with you," Angel offered instantly, but she shook her head.

"I'm probably going to call Will and the boys," she said, "and I'd really prefer it if I didn't have to explain all this to them. It's just too weird." She paused, unsure of how to continue. "I just think it would be better if you and Spike stayed here until we figure out a way to reverse the body-switch."

Angel nodded, fighting the impulse to argue. She obviously needed to be away from him for the time being, and even though that thought stung, it made perfect sense given his current condition. If she needed space, he'd give it to her willingly. "Be careful," he said quietly.

She smiled. "Hey, you know me. I've got that whole cautious look-before-you-leap attitude down to an art."

He gave her a look of affectionate disbelief, and before she could react he'd leaned forward to press his lips to hers. She felt a momentary sense of disgust at the thought of having Spike's mouth on hers, but it died away as soon as she realized that only Angel could ever kiss her with such tenderness, and that only Angel could ever make her feel as though the entire world had quietly melted away, along with her heart, whenever he kissed her. With her eyes closed, there was no mistaking him for anyone else.

_I was wrong, _she thought as she returned the kiss hungrily, gripping the lapels of his leather jacket to pull him closer. _Angel will always be my Angel – no matter what._

---

She left the mansion in a state of mild dishevelment and almost euphoric happiness. Suddenly she was confident that they'd find a way to reverse Narigh's faulty incantation; any other outcome just didn't seem possible anymore. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Willow's number. "Hey, Will. Are you busy tonight?... Okay, great. So how would you feel about spending the night watching me poke a stick into some undead bodies?"

On the other end of the line, Willow smiled. "I was just thinking that I haven't seen a good undead-body-poking in ages," she said. "Count me in. Would you mind if Jesse tagged along?"

"Actually, I was just about to call the boys and see if they could meet us at Restfield."

"Um, I think Xander might be doing something tonight," Willow said hesitantly. "But Jesse's probably free. You said Restfield, right?" she continued, hoping to divert Buffy's attention from her comment about Xander. "I can be there in twenty minutes."

"Okay. See you then." After she hung up, Buffy spent a moment staring at the phone, her fingers poised to dial another number. She hesitated, slipped the phone into her pocket, and then pulled it out again quickly, dialing the number before she could give herself time to change her mind again.

"Listen, I need a favor," she said, without any attempt at a greeting.

If Rayne was surprised to hear her voice on the other end of the line – or surprised that she even knew his number - he didn't let on. "I'm afraid I'm going to need specifics before I make any promises," he said, in his usual dry unhurried manner.

"It's just some research," she told him quickly. "I just figured I should ask you, since hitting the books is really more your department than mine."

"Did you have a particular topic in mind?"

The thought of asking him about soul-restoring incantations and body-switching crossed her mind, but she dismissed it instantly and decided to stick to her original request. "I need to know about the Brotherhood of the Fang." She felt like spitting the name out, but she forced herself to keep her voice level and expressionless. "History, MO, the location of their headquarters – anything you can find out, basically."

Rayne was silent for a moment. "Very well," he said softly, and for a moment she was afraid he'd suspected her motives in asking. _But that's impossible, _she assured herself._ There's no way he heard Ripper mention the Brotherhood to me. _

When she hung up she realized that she was closer to Restfield cemetery than she'd originally thought; by the time she made it through the gates, there was still a quarter of an hour left until Willow and Jesse were supposed to arrive.

_Guess I'll just have to keep myself busy 'til then, _she thought, smiling as she spotted a single gnarled finger poking up out of a nearby grave. The rest of the hand eventually followed, and within moments a newly-risen vampire was hauling himself out of the mound of dirt piled above his coffin.

"Hey there," Buffy said pleasantly, swinging Mr. Pointy between her fingers. "Welcome to your new life as part of the seedy underbelly of demon society."

The vampire stared at her vacantly before lunging forwards, arms outstretched, his entire focus on satisfying the overwhelming thirst for blood that grips every newborn vampire as soon as they rise.

Buffy punched him sharply on the chin. "Now, that's what I call just plain rude. Here I am, trying to give you the 411 on your extremely short future, and you repay me by trying to pull some old zombie-style attack? That is _so_ lame."

"Yeah – whatever happened to all the cool vamps?"

Buffy turned at the sound of Jesse's voice and smiled at him, just as her arm shot out to punch the vampire again. "You made it."

He stood leaning against a nearby tree, hands in his coat pockets, eyes shining with their usual mischievous amusement. "I did," he agreed, nodding. "It's not like I could let you get your slayage on without an audience. It would be such a tragic waste of high-quality entertainment."

"Aw, that's sweet," she said, backhanding the vampire across the face. "Where's Will?"

"Here," Willow called breathlessly, running up to them just as Buffy sank her stake into the vampire's chest. "I had to stop to tie my shoes," she said, a little apologetically.

"According to every horror movie ever made, you should be toast by now," Jesse said warningly. "The poor sucker who stops to tie their laces always gets beheaded first."

"Thanks, Jesse. Way to creep us all out," Buffy said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

He bowed. "What can I say? It's a gift. And speaking of cool vamps, where's your own personal Undead Connection tonight?"

"He's patrolling some of the other cemeteries," Buffy said quickly. "We figured we'd cover more ground that way."

"Good thinking," Willow said. There was a slightly uncomfortable silence before Buffy turned, tilting her head as though she was listening to something. "Do you guys hear that?"

Before Jesse or Willow had time to ask what she meant, there was a sudden rustle in the bushes nearby and a figure exploded through the shrubbery, tumbling onto the grass below. It stood up quickly and Buffy only had time to register the fact that it was wearing what looked like black robes etched with some kind of silver markings before it unsheathed a sword and swung it at her.

She ducked, going into a forward roll to avoid the arc of the sword's swing. Righting herself quickly, she managed to tell Willow and Jesse to take cover before the robed figure attacked again. On an impulse she did a back-flip; she landed unsteadily, but at a safe distance from her opponent. "I hate to break it to you, but swords went out of style around, oh, a few hundred freaking years ago," she told him – because it was clear now that the figure was a man, although in the dark it was difficult to distinguish his features.

He didn't respond, but she saw the third swing coming and dodged it easily, aiming a sharp kick at his right wrist. As she'd hoped, the force of the kick was enough to make him loosen his grip on the sword, which clattered to the ground.

"All right," she said grimly. "Now we're on even ground, we can finish this."

But as she moved forward, another loud rustle announced the arrival of two other swordsmen. _Oh, crap. _Buffy turned to where her friends were taking cover, watching her anxiously. "Guys, get to the mansion – quickly. Tell Angel and Spike I need backup."

"Spike?" Jesse repeated. "Isn't he the guy who –"

"Just do it," Buffy snapped, backing away from the approaching swordsmen. "Go! Now!"

"Aren't you sword-swinging types supposed to be chivalrous?" she said to her opponents, trying to hide her rising panic. "I don't think Lancelot would've approved of a three-to-one fight."

The first swordsman had retrieved his sword from the grass and was closing in on her steadily. "The Brotherhood protects its own," he said grimly. "No matter the cost."

"So you guys are in the Brotherhood of the Fang, huh?" Her tone was light, but now it was masking rising fury rather than fear.

"We seek out those who seek us," the swordsman continued mechanically, almost as if she hadn't spoken. "The scrutiny of lesser beings cannot be tolerated. The secrecy of the order must be protected."

"Whatever, loser. I'm not really interested in hearing your creepy manifesto." Although the swordsmen continued to advance, Buffy had come to a complete stop. She watched them approach with apparent calm, but she could feel a steadily burning anger lacing its way through her body, along with a surge of white-hot adrenalin. It got to the point where she could barely contain herself enough to keep still, and her very fingertips seemed to be buzzing.

"You know, I _was_ going to track down your headquarters and kill every last one of you," she told them coldly. Moving so quickly her body became a blur of speed, she grabbed the nearest swordsman's wrist and snapped it, ignoring his sudden scream of pain.

"But this works too."

---

**Author's Note: **Okay, so Buffy's having a bit of an Anakin Skywalker moment here, but there's an explanation for why she's decided to break the golden Slayer rule of not killing humans (which doesn't necessarily mean that she _will_ break it, by the way). Scout points and cyber-cookies to anyone who figures it out. :-P


	26. The Question

**Author's Note:** It's taken me a while to get this chapter finished, but my fanfic-writing-time has been limited lately. My almost-but-not-quite-existent shining Golden Trophy of Perception goes to Marine for guessing Buffy's connection with the Brotherhood first. And about the random vamp in chapter 25: Buffy _does_ dust him, but I basically just stuck it into the line where Willow shows up, so I guess it's hard to miss. :-P

**26. The Question**

The other swordsmen reacted quickly after Buffy's initial attack, but not quickly enough. As the wounded swordsman dropped to his knees, Buffy seized his sword, heaving it up off the grass. She hadn't expected it to be as heavy as it was, but she managed to keep a steady grip on it as she poised the blade against the wounded swordsman's neck.

"I've gotta say, I'm liking these odds a lot better," she said casually as the other swordsmen hesitated, unsure of their next move. "There's you guys, there's me, there's this shiny little broadsword in my hands, and then there's your soon-to-be-dead buddy over here. That makes it pretty even, don't you think?"

"I do not fear death," the wounded swordsman said tonelessly.

"Good for you, because he's about to make an early visit," Buffy hissed, pressing the blade harder against his neck.

The other two swordsmen didn't even flinch. "You may dispose of him," one of them said dispassionately. "He will be easily replaced."

"What happened to protecting you own, huh?"

"Silly child. You mistake our meaning. We care not for the safety of our members; we will die, and we will be replaced. Such is the fate of all mortal beings."

_Then what was he blabbing about earlier when he said they protect their own? _But she knew better than to ask.

"See, I'm still making with the _not caring_ about your creed or rules or whatever the hell you tell yourselves to justify running around in sparkly man-dresses and burning down buildings." Her grip on the sword tightened. "And what you don't seem to be getting here is that once I've liberated this guy's head from his body, I'm going to do the same to you."

"Empty threats do not cause us any concern," the first swordsman told her flatly.

Buffy laughed bitterly. "Uh, hello? I'm the _Slayer_ – that isn't just some cute nickname. I've spent more time facing the biggest, baddest uglies this side of the mouth of Hell than you've spent practicing that lame Charlton Heston imitation you've got going on, so do you _really_ think slicing and dicing you guys is going to be a problem for me?"

The swordsmen seemed to reach a silent decision, and almost simultaneously began to advance, intent on closing the short distance left between themselves and the Slayer. _And here I thought they'd be moving in the opposite direction. Oh well. _She took advantage of her speed compared to their slow, deliberate gait to lift the sword in her hands, preparing to swing it against the kneeling swordsman's neck.

"Buffy, don't!"

Buffy was pretty sure the words hadn't come out of her own mouth, but for a moment she couldn't see who had spoken. But that was before dark figure flew past her, tackling the nearest standing swordsman to the ground. A second figure quickly followed to take on the last remaining swordsman, and although Buffy experienced a moment's confusion, she quickly identified the figures as Spike and Angel.

She held the sword poised, watching as the vampires fought the swordsmen in a fairly impressive display of medieval weapons versus supernatural strength. To all appearances it was a fight between four humans, as both vampires were wearing their human faces.

But when one of the swordsmen cut the back of Angel's hand with his blade, Spike growled, his face instantly morphing. Since he was wearing the Gem the cut healed instantly, barely even appearing on the skin, but the brief pain was enough to trigger the transformation.

And then the swordsmen did something extremely odd.

As soon as they caught sight of what Buffy called 'Angel's growly vamp-face', they dropped their swords quickly and actually disengaged from the fight long enough to fall to their knees in the grass, bowing to the vampires. "Forgive us, oh mighty ones," one of the swordsmen said hoarsely. "We meant no sacrilege. Our intentions were pure."

"Yeah, pure enough to try to fillet the Slayer an' gouge a huge bloody slice outta my hand," Spike spat, completely forgetting that it was actually Angel's hand. "Sod that."

And before anyone could stop him he'd seized the swordsman's head between his hands and snapped his neck in one quick, violent motion. Spike turned to the other swordsman, but Angel held him back. "Don't even think about it."

"Why not?" Spike asked. "He's evil enough to be fair game even by your high an' mighty white hat standards, and I'm hungry." Without waiting for a response, he pushed past his grandsire and quickly caught the swordsman by the neck with one hand, lifting him to his feet.

And then oddly enough he paused, turning to Buffy. "You don't mind, do you, Slayer?"

It was a strange question, especially coming from someone as spontaneous and reckless as Spike, but somehow Angel sensed that it was really more of a challenge than a question. Spike was trying to prove something by asking for Buffy's permission, but he wasn't sure what. The one thing he _was_ sure of was Buffy's iron-clad moral code where humans were concerned – she didn't hurt them unless she absolutely had to.

Which was why her response came as such a shock.

"Not at all," Buffy said casually, with a startlingly grim expression in her green eyes that Angel had never seen before. She used her sword to gesture towards the wounded swordsman, who was still kneeling on the grass in front of her. "You can have this one when you're done."

"Cheers, love." A moment later he had sunk his teeth into the swordsman's neck, gripping his shoulders tightly to stop the man from struggling as he fed off him.

Acting on a split-second decision, Angel grabbed the third swordsman roughly by the neck, forced him to his feet and shoved him forwards. "Run," he ordered harshly. The man stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before turning and running hell-for-leather out of the cemetery, cradling his broken wrist against his chest.

Buffy didn't try to stop him; her attention was absorbed in watching Spike feed, her head cocked to the side in an attitude of calm interest. "So that's what you look like when you feed," she said musingly to Angel. "Somehow it's not as icky as I thought it would be."

"Buffy." His voice was low, but somehow that only made his tone more thunderous. He was angry, and clearly he didn't care if she knew it. "Those men didn't deserve to die."

Her laugh was completely humorless. "Yeah, well, neither did my dad."

"They didn't have anything to do with –"

"Yes, they did," she interrupted harshly. "The Brotherhood set that fire in LA."

"How do you know that?" he asked quietly, eyes averted from her face – he couldn't stand seeing the bitter grief scrawled across her features, knowing that he couldn't do anything to dispel it.

"Ripper," Buffy said shortly.

_So that's what he said to her before he left. _"And since when do you consider Ripper a reliable source of information?"

"He didn't have any reason to lie to me," she said dismissively. "And besides, these guys clearly weren't disciples of Buddha or anything. They would've killed me tonight if I'd given them the chance to."

"You didn't give them any kind of chance," Angel said sharply. "Instead of mercy, you chose murder."

"Yeah, well, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted them, but by then it was too late. Angel's expression became completely unreadable, a blank mask he wore to hide the fact that he felt as though his lover had just slapped him across the face.

Never, not in all the time they'd known each other, had she reproached him for his past, or even brought up the subject of his days as Angelus. He had begun to think that his history was unimportant to her – that she only cared about his present, loving him for what he was despite of what he used to be. _I'm not so sure about that now_.

For a long moment they stared at each other, the blankness in Angel's expression offering a direct contrast to the intense remorse in Buffy's eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her hand reaching out instinctively to touch any part of the body he was in, as a sort of silent reassurance; but he moved away before she could complete the gesture. It was the first time he'd ever avoided her touch.

"There's no need to apologize." His voice was soft, but there was no forgiveness in it. Somehow the emotion just wasn't there, and he didn't have the strength to dredge it up. He turned away to avoid seeing the expression on her face. "I'll see you at the mansion later."

"No, don't go," she said impulsively. After a brief internal struggle, her remorse won out over her pride and she went to wrap her arms around his waist, pressing her forehead to his leather-clad back. "I didn't mean it," she said softly. "You know I didn't. I would never try to hurt you like that on purpose." She paused. "But I won't apologize for letting Spike kill those men. I don't regret it."

She felt his body tense almost imperceptibly. "Not yet," he said quietly. "But you will."

"Maybe." She closed her eyes, feeling suddenly weary. "I just don't want you to hate me for it."

The thought that he could ever hate her for any reason was so ludicrous that he turned to face her, surprised to hear her even mention it as a possibility. The weariness in her expression tugged at his heart and he folded her in his arms, allowing her to rest against his chest.

"Oh, for God's sake." Having disposed of the swordsman's body, Spike stood staring at them with an expression of intense disgust. "Slayer, get away from my body before I give in to the urge to throw up all over the poofter's shiny Italian shoes."

"You wouldn't dare," Angel growled, glaring at him over the top of Buffy's head.

"Do you really want to test that theory?" Spike asked, smirking. "'Cause I'm two shakes away from a fountain over here, an' these shoes don't really strike me as being vomit-friendly."

"Eww. Could you _be_ any more disgusting?" Buffy asked, revolted.

Spike scowled, noticing that Angel still held her tightly. "I was just about to ask you the same question," he retorted. "Stop snuggling up to my body, Slayer. I don't want to end up smelling like that naff flowery perfume you high school girls always insist on wearing – it'd seriously interfere with my manliness."

"How can it interfere with something that doesn't exist?" Buffy asked sweetly.

Spike glared at her. "I'm warning you, Slayer. One of these days –"

"Yeah, yeah. One of these days you'll kill me and 'revenge will be yours', or whatever," Buffy said dismissively. "Get in line behind the other freaks."

---

When they returned to the mansion, they found Willow and Jesse waiting in a state of mild anxiety; they both seemed intensely relieved to find Buffy unscathed, and Willow hurriedly explained that they would've come to the cemetery with the vampires if Angel hadn't ordered them not to leave the mansion.

"We would've risked it anyway," Jesse filled in, "except Spike locked the door when they left."

"_Angel_ locked the door," Willow corrected him impatiently.

"What? No, I saw Spike holding the keys, and he –" He noticed the look on Willow's face and finally caught on. "Oh, yeah. The body-swap thing. I'd forgotten about that." Angel had given the teenagers a brief explanation of the situation when they'd arrived at the mansion, but he hadn't gone into any detail. Jesse glanced from Angel to Spike, his expression puzzled. "How did that happen anyway?"

"It's a very long, very punch-line-free story," Buffy told him wearily, collapsing into an armchair near the fireplace. "It all boils down to the fact that Angel is in Spike's body, and Spike is in Angel's."

"An' getting more uncomfortable by the minute," Spike said, grimacing. "The sooner we get this mess sorted, the better."

"Actually," Willow said hesitantly, "I might just have an idea about how to fix the – uh, the problem. And – and what I mean by that," she added hurriedly, noticing the way both vampires were suddenly fixing her with piercing gazes, "is that I think I know who to ask for help."

"Well, thank Lucifer _someone's_ got some sort of idea," Spike drawled. "Go on then, Red. Tell us what's brewing in that carrot-topped little head of yours."

"I was thinking," Willow said slowly. "You said the demon who did the spell was a conjurer, right?" She glanced at Angel for assurance, and he nodded briefly. "So, to fix the spell, we need to find another conjurer, or – or someone who, you know, does the same job. Like…"

"Like a warlock," Angel finished, his voice heavy with resignation. "She means Ripper."

Buffy sighed. "The fun just never stops around here, does it? It's one charming houseguest after another," she added, glaring at Spike. "I guess we don't have a choice."

"There's Rayne," Jesse suggested half-heartedly. "He probably knows how to work a little Watcher's-Council-approved magick."

Buffy shook her head. "He's not exactly Angel's biggest fan – there's always a chance he'll try to take advantage of this whole weird _Face/Off_ situation and pull a fast one on us. I can't risk that."

"Aw, Slayer, I didn't know you cared," Spike said, leering.

Buffy clenched her fists and turned to Willow. "We'll find Ripper as soon as possible," she said firmly. "The sooner he gets here, the sooner I can have the satisfaction of punching Spike's lights out."

"Not if I get there first," Angel growled, irritated by the sight of his grandchilde's signature smirk appearing on his own face.

"Oh, please. With your shoddy aim? I'll start quakin' in my boots when you swing a punch that doesn't land a whole bloody mile from where you'd meant it to," Spike said insolently. "As in _never_."

"Uh, shouldn't we be discussing how we're going to track Ripper down?" Willow asked, glancing nervously from one vampire to the other.

"Will's got a point. Let's just focus on reversing the spell," Buffy said. "We can worry about everything else later." _Including finding the rest of the Brotherhood so I can reunite them with their formerly-breathing friends. _

She felt rather than saw Angel suddenly turn to fix her with his searching, level gaze, and she determinedly avoided his eyes. As she did so, she couldn't figure out if the faint warmth that rose to her cheeks was the heated flush of defiance, or the guilty blush of shame.

---


	27. The Reversal

**Author's Note:** In response to the oh-so-subtle hints made by a certain highly effusive someone who totally owes me a 30-second live clip of Darling Violetta (_and_ FSM!) and who may or may not be receiving a shiny medal for Longest Reviews Ever Written In The History Of This Particular Fic (And Possibly Fanfiction In General), I've included some BA fluffiness in this chapter, which I'll probably spin on into the next chapter. I'm starting to feel like there's not enough BA-ness in this fic, and hopefully I can remedy that without going overboard and/or crossing the border into smut-land.

In other current local news, I love my reviewers. You guys are my all-time favorite strangers in the whole wide world. _Ever_. :-)

**27. The Reversal**

"Now, let's review this delicious little situation, shall we?" Ripper lounged in one of the mansion's plush fireside armchairs, his legs dangling over the side of the armrest, a cigarette held loosely in one hand. The look on his face was one of smug, languid amusement. "_You_ –" he pointed at Angel's body, "tried to rob poor Angel over there –" he pointed to Spike's body, "of his soul. But then the spell got completely and _utterly_ buggered up by some blue bloke with horns, and now the two of you are trapped in each other's bodies like sardines in sodding tin cans." He paused, turning to look at Buffy. "And _you_ want me to fix it."

"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. So can you help us or not?" Buffy tried not to sound too impatient. She really didn't like the idea of owing Ripper a favor, but it didn't compare to how much she _hated_ the idea of never having Angel back in his own body, so she swallowed her pride and gave the warlock a faint smile as she waited for an answer.

Ripper took a long drag on his cigarette and winked at her cheerfully. "'Course I can. They're the easiest thing in the world, reversal spells."

"Oh, good. So… do we need to start looking for some newts' eyes or something?" she asked. "Because honestly, I'm not really loving the idea of being anywhere near any kind of eyes that aren't affiliated with a head. And also, I'm pretty sure this place isn't fire-proof, so if you're planning on lighting a whole bunch of candles, we'll all have to move out the courtyard."

Ripper rolled his eyes. "Honestly, the ideas you people have about magick are just utterly bleedin' ridiculous. I don't need any newts' eyes or candles, Slayer. I just need for the body-thief and Mr. Stoic over there to lie on their backs, approximately five feet apart."

Spike squinted at Ripper suspiciously. "You sure you know what you're doing?"

Ripper stared back coolly. "Just do it, bloodsucker. Unless of course you fancy the idea of inhabiting Angel's body for the rest of your undead lifetime."

Spike stubbornly stood his ground for a few moments, but eventually shuffled to the middle of the living room and threw himself down resentfully on the carpet. "There. Can we get on with this bollocks now?"

Angel silently settled onto his back a few feet away from Spike, staring up at the ceiling with a deadpan expression. Ripper glanced down at them, nodding. "That'll do. Now reach out and clasp each other's hand."

Spike sat up quickly. "I don't bloody think so."

"I second that," Angel said. "We didn't bring you here so you could tell us to hold hands."

Ripper shrugged. "Listen, mate, I'm only helping you at all because the Slayer asked me to. To be honest, I don't give a shred about what happens to either one of you. I have a feeling _she_ does, though." He tipped his head towards Buffy. "So I suggest you two stop whining and do what Simon bloody well Says."

With an irritated sigh, Angel grabbed Spike's hand (which was, in fact, his own hand), keeping his other hand clenched in a fist at his side.

"Don't get any funny ideas now, Peaches," Spike warned him. "You may be in a devilishly attractive body, but that doesn't mean I'll be bowled over by some poncey hand-holding."

When Angel turned his head to give him an icy glare, the younger vampire grinned. "I'll at _least _need to be taken on a proper dinner-date before I let you get anywhere near these freakishly wide shoulders."

"Are you seriously hitting on my boyfriend in front of me?" Buffy asked, her mouth twitching as she suppressed a smile. "That is _so_ slutty."

Spike shrugged. "Yeah, well, I'm not exactly known for being classy and subtle, Slayer."

"No kidding," Buffy said dryly. "Anyways, you're just going to have to find your own undead boy-toy to play with. You can't have mine."

"What happened to all that sharing and caring crap you humans are always spouting, then?"

"I think it died in some sort of murder-suicide pact with romance and chivalry a few years ago."

"Oh, right." Spike paused. "So I suppose you wouldn't consider some sort of time-share plan?"

Buffy shook her head. "He's all mine, all the time," she said firmly.

"Shame," Spike said with mock-wistfulness. "I was just starting to take a fancy to this sky-high forehead."

"Could you two _please_ end this highly disturbing conversation?" Angel asked, glancing up at Buffy. "My subconscious is already working overtime trying to suppress any memory of it."

Buffy grinned. "Sorry about that." She turned to Ripper. "So how about we get this arcane magick show on the road?"

Ripper stood between Spike and Angel's prostrate forms, his arms outstretched so that each of his hands hovered directly above one of their bodies. He began to chant slowly and rhythmically, speaking the words of an incantation in a language that Buffy definitely didn't recognize. As he chanted, the vampires seemed to become infused with a faint blue light that intensified until it was almost blinding. Still chanting, Ripper moved his hands so that his arms crossed. As he did so, the light seemed to leap out of Angel's body and into Spike's, at the exact same moment that the light surrounding Spike's body flew into Angel's.

Ripper abruptly stopped chanting, and the room suddenly seemed eerily silent. The vampires lay completely still. For a long, anxious moment Buffy held her breath, waiting for one of them to move or speak.

Finally Angel's body stirred, and his eyes opened. Buffy looked down into his familiar inky dark eyes and instantly recognized the loving tenderness in his expression. Without thinking, she threw herself at him, burrowing into his chest with shameless affection. He pulled her close, relieved to finally be able to put his own arms around her again. "I love you," she mumbled into his shirt. "And I'm so, so, so glad you're back to normal. And also, I love you. Did I mention that already?"

In response, he dropped a long, lingering kiss onto her hair, her cheeks and her forehead. She glowed visibly, happiness radiating from every pore, as his lips found their way to hers. He kissed her with the passionate hunger of a starving man at a feast, exploring the sweet warmth of her mouth while her hands reached up to clasp his face, her palms warming his cheeks.

Ripper showed a surprising sense of tact when he pretended to suddenly be engrossed by one of the paintings hanging in the living room. Spike didn't bother much with tact; as soon as he'd reassured himself that he was indeed back in his own body, he grimaced at the lovers. "Oh, for crying out loud. Every time I turn around, the pair of you are snogging each other's lights out. It's like a bloody sideshow act!"

Buffy broke her kiss with Angel long enough to glare up at her nemesis. "Spike, go away before I stop channeling Mother Theresa and finally decide to stake your sorry ass."

"Wasn't exactly planning on hanging around," Spike retorted. "Just wanted to make sure the mojo man did his job right." He got up and mock-saluted Buffy. "Until next time, then, Slayer."

"Yeah, whatever." Buffy didn't bother to look up at him; she was locked in a mutual gaze with Angel, smiling faintly as his fingers traced the shape of her mouth. "Please make sure the door hits you on the way out."

"I should probably be following my distinguished countryman out," Ripper said dryly, "since I've clearly outstayed my welcome."

With an effort, Buffy managed to glance up at the warlock. "I guess we owe you one now."

"Yes," Ripper agreed, "you do. But don't worry; you'll have plenty of opportunities to repay me when you visit the store."

"Huh? What does that m–" Buffy let the sentence trail off when she realized that the warlock had already disappeared. She quirked an eyebrow at Angel. "What was that all about?"

"Knowing Ripper, we'll probably find out soon," Angel replied, tucking a stray strand of golden hair behind her ear. "I wouldn't worry about it until then."

"Well, it's good to know that you can be all Zen and _que será_, _será_ about Ripper now," Buffy said teasingly. "Especially since he just saved both of our lives."

Angel smiled faintly. "Did you just speak Spanish?"

"I was quoting a song," she explained. "You know, the one that goes, 'whatever will be, will be'? Doris Day sang it," she added. "So did Pink Martini, but that version sucks."

Angel shrugged. "Haven't heard it."

"Really?" She tipped her head to the side, speculatively. "So what _have_ you heard?"

"Uh…"

Buffy grimaced lightly. "I'm guessing that means 'nothing'."

"I haven't had much time for music in the past two hundred and forty years," he pointed out, a bit defensively.

"Oh, that's right; first you were too busy being evil and soulless, and then you went all repent-y and spent your nights brooding in dark corners. How could anyone possibly work any music-time into _that_ schedule?"

The appearance of a saucy smile on her face was enough to make him temporarily lose his train of thought as he stared, transfixed, at the curving of her rose-tinted lips. _God, she's gorgeous._ "Don't you think I deserve a little more sympathy than that?"

"Not really," she said cheerfully. "My sympathy is reserved for things of the living."

He growled in mock-anger and leaned in to nuzzle her neck, nipping the skin ever so lightly with his teeth. She half-giggled, half-gasped. "Okay, okay," she said hurriedly. "Point proven. No more anti-vampire quips."

"Promise?" His voice was a low, husky rumble against her neck, and it sent a wave of thrills cresting along her skin. When he nipped her again she let out a second, softer gasp that had nothing to do with amusement and everything to do with a sudden upwelling of lust.

"Uh…" she struggled to clear her head. "Yeah. Scout's honor." She had meant to sound glib, but somehow her voice came out in a whisper and she found herself staring at the outline of Angel's chest beneath his shirt. _What? No! Naughty thoughts, begone! This is _so_ not the time to be thinking about what Angel's naked chest looks like – although that's totally a thought worthy of any girl's brain. _

When she finally managed to glance up at his face, she was embarrassed to see that he was watching her closely. Although she could clearly see the faint amusement expressed by his handsome features, the longing in his eyes mirrored her own. _So I'm probably not the only one having naughty thoughts. _But she wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a bad one.

Or at least, she wasn't until Angel's hands pulled her closer and she was caught up in another one of his dizzying, delicious kisses. _Okay, so mutual naughty thoughts are definitely of the good._ Although the texture and taste of his lips were now as familiar to her as the rhythm of her own heartbeat, she realized that something had changed in the way he was kissing her. For the first time there was more force than tenderness in his kiss; he had always held back before, not wanting to frighten her by letting her know just how much he wanted her, but that sense of caution was gone now – at least temporarily.

His hands roamed over her body, leaving a burning trail of goosebumps on her skin. He lost himself to the exploration of her curves and angles, stubbornly ignoring the voice in his head telling him to slow down. Without breaking their kiss, he lay back on the coarse surface of the carpet, pulling her with him. Buffy could barely breathe and Angel pulled back for the barest of seconds, enough for her to catch a single breath before his tongue was on hers again and his taste was filling her mouth – a strange cocktail of cool, damp nothingness and something else, a slightly salty flavor that was uniquely his.

She felt her world narrow until it included only Angel; her present was suddenly an entire lifetime of kisses and caresses and the sweet endearments he whispered against her mouth. _I love you, _he told her, over and over, in English and Gaelic and medieval French. _Never loved anyone the way I love you. _

His fingers were tangled in the honey-colored silk of her hair and she clung to his shoulders, feeling her body align itself with his until they seemed to have been melded into one being. In the part of her mind that was still capable of thought, she started to think fuzzily that there was too much clothing between her skin and his. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and he freed one hand from the mass of her hair to help her, shedding the shirt quickly. His hand paused over the amulet, but she covered his fingers with hers, signaling him to keep it on – just in case.

Her shirt was a little more difficult to get rid of, and she was forced to break the kiss long enough to pull it over her head, tossing it negligently aside. She'd never really understood what a 'burning gaze' was until she saw the way Angel was looking at her, his dark eyes drinking in the sight of her toned, golden-skinned upper body and the simple lacy white bra she'd put on that morning without suspecting that he might be seeing it that very same day.

She started to regret that she hadn't worn anything sexier. _Like the black one with the silk butterfly pattern, or that red one…_ But then he pressed a slow, reverent kiss to her shoulder, and her insecurities fled instantly."White is my new favorite color," he mumbled into her skin, delighted by the laugh he elicited from her. She made him smile so often that it was always a pleasure to return the favor, even if he knew levity had never been his strong point.

She kissed his chin before tucking her head comfortably underneath it, running her fingers idly down his chest. "No offense to our current location," she whispered, "but somehow I'm thinking I'd much rather be in a bed right about now."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Alone?"

"No, of course not." She smiled up at him innocently. "Obviously, I'll have Mr. Gordo with me."

He refused to be baited. "And if Mr. Gordo can't make it?"

"Well, in _that_ case I'll just have to settle for the company of my gorgeous," she planted a kiss on his jawline, "sexy," she kissed the smooth skin of his neck, "terminally brooding boyfriend." She punctuated the end of the sentence with a playful lick to his earlobe and he chuckled quietly, his hand drifting down the warm expanse of her back.

"Is that an invitation?"

His voice was light, but his gaze was serious and she suddenly realized that it was important to him to know that she consented fully, with no reservations. If she had even one doubt, he would rather wait for years to make love to her than insist on bringing her to his bed now. She was touched by his sense of honor. _But then again, that's just Angel being Angel. The perfect gentleman _and_ a powerful warrior, all wrapped up in one seriously hot package. _Sometimes she still had trouble believing that he was really hers; she didn't feel like she'd done anything to deserve to be so happy.

"Yes," she said firmly. "I mean, it's not in writing or anything, but I guess I could pay a visit to Hallmark if you really wanted a written inv–"

He silenced her with a swift, soft kiss. When he pulled away, she was smiling in a way that made him feel as though he was suddenly bathed in sunlight. "So I'm guessing a Hallmark run won't be necessary."

"No," he agreed quietly. "Which is just as well," he continued, his voice husky, "because I'm not planning on letting you out of my sight for the next… oh, ten hours or so."

She raised her eyebrows. "Ten hours?"

The decidedly wicked gleam in his dark eyes sent a pleasant shiver down her spine and she almost couldn't hear his answer over the sudden quickening of her heartbeat.

"Oh, yes. At _least_."

---

**Author's Note: **Okay, so I ended up with more fluff than substance, but I was going for 'sexy without the sex' (because, hello, T rating) and it's not like this fic has been chock-full of fluff so far. Also, I think we can all agree that Angel didn't mean ten hours _straight_, although that's an interesting concept. :-P

Anyways – reviews make me smile in a really goofy way, and you wouldn't want to miss out on that, would you?


	28. The Lesson

**Author's Note:** Although I'm starting this chapter off with major BA-ness (um, under-13-year-olds may want to skip the first part), I will eventually get around to dealing with plot-related events.

Probably. Maybe.

At _some_ point. :-P

**28. The Lesson**

Buffy was fairly certain that it was around midnight on Saturday; but then again, her sense of time seemed to have disappeared a while ago, along with any thoughts that weren't directly Angel-related. Lying on her back in the luxurious four-poster bed of the master bedroom, she stared upwards, her eyes absently tracing the gold and white plaster molding that ran along the edge of the ceiling while her thundering heartbeat slowed to its natural rhythm.

Her body began to cool off a little so that her skin no longer felt as though it had caught fire, and eventually she stopped panting for breath. There was a glorious, throbbing ache in her nearly all of her limbs that she didn't quite want to think about or analyze yet. She'd been so completely caught up in the intense pleasure of the past few hours that she hadn't realized just how hard her body had been working to keep up with the demands of her desire – and Angel's.

She turned her head to find him watching her quietly, with an expression that made her breath catch in her throat. The adoration in his eyes was overwhelming and she found herself thinking, _I don't deserve that look. _

"Hi," she whispered, as though they hadn't been passionately expressing their love for each other for most of the night.

He pushed away some of the hair clinging to her damp forehead, smiling faintly. "Hi," he whispered back.

She shifted slightly to rest her head on his chest, sighing in innate satisfaction as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "I can't believe I've been missing out on this for so long," she said, her voice solemn with awe.

Then she flashed him a quick smile. "D'you think maybe we could work out some sort of refund program for lost time?"

His laugh was low rumble in his chest. "I'm sure we can think of something."

Buffy noted with a little jolt of renewed arousal that one of his hands was still resting on her naked thigh, but she felt too exhausted to do anything about it just then. "Just for the record, that was…" she faltered, unable to think of a word to describe what she'd just experienced in his arms. "Is there a word that means amazing _and_ wonderful?"

"There is in Gaelic," he said, softly. "_Iontach._"

"I guess that fits," she said, smiling, "but I'm never gonna be able to pronounce it right."

"I'll teach you." He pressed a butterfly kiss to her mouth, fighting the urge to lose himself completely in the taste of her lips. Pulling back slightly, he ran his fingertips gently along her arm. "_Gàirdean_."

She repeated the word, but she couldn't match Angel's flawless pronunciation, or his lyrical accent. He lifted her arm, kissing the sensitive skin of her wrist before taking her hand in his own. "_Làmh_."

His fingers played along the curve of her neck, feeling her pulse quicken almost instantly. "_Amhaich_."

His voice had become a low, intense whisper, and she wondered if he knew that every limb that he named seemed to come alive under his touch, while the rest of her body waited enviously for his attention.

Her heart thrummed forcefully as his fingertips slid down her collarbone and along the swell of her breasts. "_Broilleach_."

His hand settled on her stomach and she felt as though his touch, for all its coldness, was burning an imprint onto her skin. "_Muine_."

"Mine?" she repeated questioningly, unsure of whether she'd heard him right.

He laughed and took her head in his hands, kissing her forehead lovingly. "Yes," he whispered. "Mine."

"Always," she assured him softly, and he was struck by the depth of the love in her eyes as they stared into his.

He leaned down to kiss her, allowing the intoxicating flavor of her lips to dismantle his thought processes until she was all that he knew, felt, or cared about.

He tried to pull her closer, only to realize that her body was already pressed against his so that they lay skin-to-skin, without even the shadow of an inch to separate them. They were melded together, pale against golden, cool against hot, large against small. Their bodies had become a study in the beauty of contrast, not that they realized it at the time; they were far too busy worshipping each other's mouths as their kiss deepened to dwell on the abstract beauty of their relationship.

Unthinkingly, Angel shifted so that her body was no longer beside his so much as beneath it, although he was careful not to crush her; even through the burning haze of lust that swept through his body and scattered his thoughts, he took care to avoid anything that might hurt her. Their kiss developed into a passionate assault on the mere concept of self-control as they devoured each other, lost in the hinterland between reality and their own private heaven.

With the leonine grace of a practiced lover, Angel positioned himself between her thighs, breaking their kiss long enough to search the green pools of her eyes for silent permission. Her answer was an impatient moan and an instinctive upward thrust of her hips that caught them both by surprise.

Buffy had just enough time to marvel at her own boldness before he slid inside her and she was flooded with a tidal wave of pure sensation. The brief pain she felt at first was followed by exquisite, mind-numbing pleasure, and the vague awareness that even while her lips were breathlessly forming his name, Angel was whispering something against the curve of her neck.

His voice was hoarse with desire, his words keeping time with the deliciously slow, languid rhythm of his movements. "_Tá grá agam duit. Is tusa mo __rè__, mo chroí. Mo anam_."

_I love you. You are my heart, my life. My soul. _

---

A long, long time later, Buffy found herself stubbornly resisting sleep. Exhaustion was gradually spreading its way through her body and muffling her thoughts, but she hated the idea of surrendering to unconsciousness and missing out on any time that could have been spent with Angel.

Angel himself wasn't exactly tired in the traditional sense, but a feeling of warm, satiated contentment prevented him from wanting to do anything other than hold his beautiful Slayer close to his chest and stroke her hair.

"You should sleep," he told her, sensing her exhaustion.

"I'm not tired," she lied. "Besides, I can always take a nap later on. That's what Sundays are _for_."

"You'd feel better if you slept now, believe me."

"Haven't we had this argument before?" she asked, smiling faintly.

"Yes," Angel agreed, "and I ended up winning it."

"Because you cheated!"

"No," he said teasingly,"because I know what's good for you."

She laughed. "I thought only fathers were supposed to think like that."

"Most fathers do," he said, and there was a sudden bitterness in his tone that surprised her.

She raised her fingers to his cheek in an automatic gesture of concern. "Why do I get the feeling you're speaking from experience?"

He was silent, and for a moment she thought he wouldn't answer. Then he sighed. "Remember when I told you about Darla and how she was sired? At the shelter?"

She nodded. "You weren't really big on the Angelus-related details, though."

"No," he agreed. "I was afraid of what you might think of me."

She pressed a reassuring kiss to his collarbone and he smiled. "I also left out the story of my mortal life, because, well… it isn't really something to be proud of. I lived 24 years as a human being, and nearly every single one of them was wasted," he continued, his voice heavy with regret.

"I spent my days drinking myself into a state where life seemed bearable, rather than mind-numbingly boring, and since I hated solitude, I took care to always be in the company of some beautiful girl or other. A lot of those girls where whores," he added bluntly, feeling the need to be completely honest with her. Buffy's eyes widened a fraction, but she didn't comment.

"My father was perhaps the only person who got through to me during those last few years, but not in the way he expected. I suppose the way he treated me was supposed to make me want to change, but all it did was give me multiple reasons to hate him. He was convinced that by belittling me and beating down whatever self-confidence I had, he was making me a man." Angel's dark eyes became distant, and their expression frightened her a little. "Instead I became a monster."

She pressed a finger to his lips. "Don't use that word, Angel. You're not a monster."

He kissed the tip of her finger. "Not to you, maybe."

"Not at _all_," she said fiercely. "You've saved too many lives and done too much good in the world to call yourself that."

He was silent, wanting her to believe that he agreed with her. But he didn't – and couldn't. As far as he was concerned, the only truly good deed he'd accomplished in his lifetime was loving her. "The point to my story is that every parent is convinced they're doing the right thing for their children. And inevitably, their children grow up to repeat their mistakes."

Although she was on the very brink of drifting off to sleep, Buffy managed to stay alert enough to consider his statement. "Tell you what," she whispered. "I promise not to become my mom, if _you_ promise not to become your dad."

He laughed softly. "It's a deal."

"Good," she whispered sleepily, burying her face against his chest. "I don't want our children to end up hating us."

As her breathing slowed and her body softened into the complete relaxation of deep sleep, Angel found himself unable to tear his eyes away from her face. He wasn't sure how much time he spent staring at her, frozen in both wonderment and pain. _Our children. _

The thought of them, of those hypothetical children who would be a true melding of him and his beautiful lover gripped him with steel claws and refused to let go. He tried to push it aside but it wouldn't budge, wouldn't offer him any relief. The heartbreakingly vivid image that his mind conjured up of his children – _her_ children – was accompanied by a single, vicious thought.

_They can never exist. _

---

Buffy awoke to find the bedroom flooded with sunlight, and realized that Angel had pulled down the boards that had covered the windows. She wasn't surprised – now that he had the amulet, there was no reason to keep the sunlight out of the mansion's rooms. She had expected to find Angel himself sleeping beside her, but she was alone in the bed and the room was empty. _Okay, this is… interesting. What's with the lack of Angel and Angel-flavored morning cuddles? _

Then she felt his presence in the hallway, and a moment later he slipped into the room, carrying a tray laden with what looked like a plate of toast, eggs and Pop Tarts, and a glass of orange juice. A pair of crimson roses in a simple white vase completed the picture-perfect breakfast set, and Buffy gave him a glowing smile as he sat down beside her. She sat up against the headboard and he settled the tray on her knees with the air of a waiter serving a guest at a fine restaurant.

She kissed him gratefully. "Now _this_ is what I call service."

"We aim to please," he said teasingly, dropping a kiss into her hair as she unwrapped the Pop Tarts.

"So, once I've managed to make all of this food vanish mysteriously, what do you think we should do?"

He raised his eyebrows suggestively and she laughed. "Yes, but I mean _besides_ that. I feel like we could use a little fresh air."

He ran his fingers gently through her hair. "Where do you want to go?"

"I was thinking maybe we could take a walk downtown. There's a record store on Escondido that we could look into, and the park isn't too far from there."

"A record store, huh? I'm assuming this isn't just some big master plan to introduce me to that Doris Day song?"

She laughed, swatting him on the shoulder. "No, but it wouldn't kill you to listen to some music that isn't being played on a gramophone, or whatever they used in your day."

"Hey, my day wasn't all that long ago," he said, pretending to be hurt.

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe not in vampire terms, but to a sixteen-year-old it's ancient history."

"So I'm just a relic of the past, is that what you're saying?"

"Mm-hmm." She pushed the breakfast tray aside and slid onto his lap, straddling his hips. "A _very sexy_ relic of the past."

He smiled faintly and wrapped his arms around her waist as she nuzzled his neck. "I can live with that."

---

"Are you sure this is it?" Angel asked, uncertainly.

Buffy nodded, but there was a great deal of hesitation in the way she was staring at the store situated on 21 Escondido Avenue. The plate-glass windows were darkened to the point of being almost opaque, and the silver Gothic lettering set on a deep purple sign above the door spelled out the single word _Hex_.

"This is the address I remember hearing," she said, "but now I'm not so sure this place is a record store after all."

"We won't find out by standing on the sidewalk," Angel reasoned.

When they pushed open the door they were relieved to find that most of the space in the store was taken up by shelves and racks filled with CD cases, indicating that it was indeed a record store, even if the atmosphere inside was very quiet and somehow murky. "Come on," Buffy said, heading for the alternative music section. "We'll start with the good stuff, move on to country and pop, and eventually work our way to Britney Spears."

"Who?"

Buffy grinned. "You'll find out soon. And then you'll wish you hadn't."

"I can't wait," Angel said dryly, pretending not to be enchanted by her warm smile and the enthusiasm in her eyes.

"I'm going to blithely ignore the sarcasm in that comment, because you are totally going to enjoy this. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

"You should listen to her, Angel. It sounds like she's got surprisingly decent taste."

Buffy turned in surprise at the sound of the familiar male voice and found herself staring into a pair of amused brown eyes set in a lined, slightly unshaven face. "Why hello there, Slayer."

Buffy was stunned into silence for a moment. "Oh, my god. What are _you_ doing here?"

Ripper smiled slightly. "I told you you'd see me next time you visited the store, didn't I?" He gestured around the room. "_My_ store, that is."

"You own this place?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"I do now," he said sardonically. "The last chap who owned it made me an offer I just couldn't refuse."

"So you've suddenly decided that your life's ambition is to sell CDs in a small town?" Angel asked, his voice heavy with disbelief. "Oddly enough, I get the feeling that's not all there is to it."

Ripper's smile widened. "Perceptive as ever, my friend. No, I'm afraid this little set-up is only half of the actual business." He pushed aside a curtain concealing a door behind the counter and opened it with a flourish.

Buffy glanced at Angel quizzically and he shook his head. Part of her agreed with him – this whole situation seemed weird and leaving would probably be the smartest move to make – but on the other hand, she was suddenly _dying_ to know what Ripper was concealing behind that door.

Seeing the conflicting emotions on her face, Angel sighed and caught her hand firmly in his. For a moment she thought he was going to pull her out of the store, but instead he looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to make up her mind. She finally decided to follow Ripper through the door, compelled by her curiosity and an instinctive sense that Ripper wouldn't try to hurt them.

What she saw on the other side of the doorway made her gasp.

---


	29. The Crush

**Author's Note:** Took me a while to get around to writing this chapter, what with the exams and assignments piling up. It was written during the past two or three days, so it's probably more than a little unpolished, but typos/mistakes will be fixed when I find them. As usual, reviews for the past chapter have made me very happy, and I want to thank everyone who dropped a line. :-)

**29****. ****The ****Crush**

Shelves lined the walls of the store's hidden room, crammed with jars of various shapes and colors. Although many of the jars seemed to be filled with strange, dried herbs, there were others that Buffy really didn't want to look at too closely. Against the far wall, several shelves were devoted to books – all of the titles indicated some kind of magick-related content, and Buffy found herself eyeing one in particular: _Vengeance Spells. _She looked away quickly, hoping Angel hadn't followed her line of sight. She turned to Ripper.

"What is all this?"

"Magick supplies." Ripper pulled a jar off the shelf, smiling fondly at the chopped octopus tentacles stuffed inside it. "Only the best. I had to completely re-stock the place after I threw out all the mangy New Age crap the last chap was trying to sell, but it was worth it."

"Wait – this was a magick store _before_ you bought it? How come I never heard of it?"

Ripper raised an eyebrow. "When was the last time you needed to buy a pound of arrowgrass?"

"Good point. I guess I'm not much of a magick-supply-buyer."

"I could say the same for most of the humans in this town," Ripper said, carefully sliding the jar he was holding back into its place.

"So who buys this stuff?" Buffy asked.

"Witches," Ripper said. "Warlocks. Neo-pagans, cyber-pagans, druids, neo-druids..." he shrugged. "It's a fairly long list. And those are just the humans. The demons are usually the more demanding customers."

"Meaning that they have a tendency to harm you unless you hand over what they want," Angel said evenly.

Ripper shrugged again. "They're not exactly soft-hearted pansies, no. I haven't had any real trouble with them yet, but…"

"But?" Angel prompted harshly.

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't _hurt_ to have the Slayer on my side in case things get unpleasant."

"You want me to help you deal with your demon customers?" Buffy stared at him incredulously. "Have you been rolling up some of those magic herbs and _smoking_ them? 'Cause there's really no other excuse for –"

"For collecting my payment?" Ripper finished silkily.

Buffy fell silent and Ripper continued. "You owe me, Summers. I saved your dearly departed boyfriend over there from a lifetime of peroxide and black leather, and now you're in my debt."

"Fine, so I owe you," Buffy said, trying to sound unconcerned. "Have you ever heard of money? It's this green papery stuff people use when they can't get away with leaving an I.O.U. note. How about I just give you some of that?"

"I don't need money," Ripper said dismissively. "I need protection."

"You're a warlock!" Buffy said, losing her temper. "I've seen you vanish into thin air! You _don't_ need protection!"

"Let's just say I _want_ it, then," Ripper retorted. "I'm not asking for your sodding firstborn child here. All you have to do is spend a few hours here every week, keeping an eye out while I deal with my non-human customers. It's not much to ask."

"She's not going to do it, so I suggest you drop the subject. _Quickly_." Angel's voice was a low, threatening rumble, but it didn't seem to affect Ripper at all.

"Does your boyfriend make all your decisions for you, then, Slayer? Isn't that just a little too Donna Reed for someone like you?"

"Someone like me?"

"Strong, skilled with weaponry, intelligent. All that sort of thing."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I'm hearing the flattery, but it's just bouncing straight off me. I am one hundred percent flattery-proof, mister."

"Really? Shame. I was hoping I wouldn't have to remind you – yet _again_ – that you owe me."

Buffy sighed, and Angel could see that she was beginning to relent. "No," he said fiercely. "You don't owe him anything."

Buffy looked at him silently. _I do, though. He told me about the Brotherhood, he gave me the Gem, he brought you back to your body. I do owe him. _As if he could hear her thoughts, Angel shook his head. "It didn't cost him anything to perform that spell!"

"And it won't cost you anything to come here regularly for a little while," Ripper said to her, not missing a beat. "Say, an hour a day, three days a week…"

"Once a week," Buffy corrected him.

"Twice," Ripper countered. "It's only fair, considering that I'll have to squeeze all my demon clients into that time slot."

"Fine, twice."

"And it'll only be until I can find myself a proper bodyguard or security bloke," Ripper said reassuringly, with just the shadow of a smug glance in Angel's direction. "Three months, at the most."

"One month," Buffy said firmly. "One month, and we're even."

"Buffy, no." Angel was shocked that she would even consider taking up Ripper's bizarre offer. "It's some kind of trap, or game – this is _Ripper_ we're talking about here! Don't do this."

Buffy stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his mouth, trying to ease away the expression of stony disapproval on his handsome face. He didn't respond and his dark eyes bored into her until she looked away. "I know," she said quietly. "But I owe him."

And she felt suddenly, desperately, that she needed to be free of the burden of owing him, or there was no telling what he might try to demand from her – or do to her – in future. She was the Slayer, but Ripper had powerful magick on his side. _This way is easier. _

A grin slowly formed on Ripper's face. "Do we have a deal, then?"

"Yes." The moment she spoke the word into the still air of the magick store, she felt as though she'd signed a contract with the devil. _Which isn't such a weird thought, considering who I'm dealing with. _

"Excellent." Ripper rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, then."

--

"You're angry at me."

Angel sighed, turning to look at her. She stood just inside the mansion's living room doorway, arms loose at her sides, an uncertain expression on her face. He allowed himself a moment to admire the way the soft, muted lighting in the room enhanced her loveliness, reminding him forcibly of just how lucky he was. The book he'd been pretending to read for the past hour slipped out of his hands as he rose to embrace her.

"No," he disagreed, speaking softly into the seashell curve of her ear. "Not angry. Just disappointed. And can you blame me?"

"It's just Ripper." She was divided evenly between desire for him and a need to justify her actions. His lips brushed her earlobe on their way to her neck and she felt the balance shift decidedly in desire's favor.

"He's always 'just' Ripper until he decides it would be in his best interests to do something evil," Angel countered, grasping her hips gently to pull her closer. "He can't be trusted." His voice had become a vague murmur against her skin, and part of his mind was telling him to shut up about the warlock and just focus on Buffy.

She didn't reply, partly because she knew he was right, but mostly because she was tired of the conversation and would rather just be kissed. "What's done is done," she said quietly. She took a few slow, deliberate steps backwards, pulling Angel with her by the belt-hooks on his jeans until she felt the edge of the nearest armchair against her knees. "I'll play along with Ripper's weird little charade, do the whole Helpful Assistant thing and that'll be that."

She swiveled until their positions were reversed and pushed him into the armchair, momentarily abandoning gentleness for real force. And judging by the expression in his eyes as he looked up at her, Angel didn't mind at all. If anything, the hunger in his eyes only intensified. "There's really no need to get all patriarchal and worried about it."

She slipped comfortably onto his lap, leaning in to plant a teasingly chaste kiss on his smooth, cool lips. It was barely even a peck. She heard a predictably irritated growl in the region of his throat and laughed, leaning back to smile at him. "Okay?"

He loved that smile, loved the way it lit up her forest-green eyes. He couldn't completely remember what it was they were arguing about, but he found himself decidedly _not_ caring. "Okay."

"Good." She leaned closer again, pausing just before her lips met his. They were almost unbearably close, her hips melded onto his, his hands pressed against the warm plane of her back, her hair brushing his chest and shoulders. Angel had the fleeting idea of totally ignoring his own raging arousal and simply sitting there like that, with her, until the closeness became too much bear. But then she spoke in that husky whisper she reserved entirely for him and the idea went straight out the window. "Now, kiss me."

And he did. He kissed her there, in the armchair, until their surroundings stilled and the only sound he could hear was her breathing. He kissed her while her heartbeat thrummed in her chest and her petite hands slipped over his body, caressing him with an urgency he didn't know she was capable of. He kissed her as they made their way irregularly up the stairs, stopping every few steps to tug off an item of clothing that seemed to be getting in the way, taking the time to appreciate every new limb revealed with careful intensity.

He kissed her later on, in his bed. He swallowed almost every breathless sigh and moan she made, because he felt instinctively that it would be a waste to allow a sound so delicious to float into the air; but she was too delirious with pleasure to care about his reasons for doing it, and so the compliment was lost on her.

There were others, though. She knew she would never tire of Angel's particular brand of compliments – intimate, exquisitely worded and designed to dismantle even the shadow of a doubt as to how beautiful she was, or how much he loved her. He instilled her with the kind of confidence she didn't think she'd ever have, and in return she explored novel new ways of thanking him.

Somewhere in the transition between the first hour and the second, her vocabulary became a store of very few words, which she spoke with varying degrees of intensity and repeated often: _Angel_,_ yes_, _oh God, please, _and _I love you. _

It was strange, then, that with that small stock of language she was able to say everything and anything he'd ever wanted to hear.

--

"So, are we all clear on this?" Xander fixed his two oldest friends with the only serious look he was capable of.

"Yes," Willow agreed sadly. "Even though I still think that if you just told her the truth, you'd feel – "

"Slightly less crappy than I do now? Yeah, thanks Will, but I'm not too sure about that theory." He turned his attention to Jesse. "What about you?"

Jesse held up his hands. "Hey, I'm cool with it. I've signed the dotted line, man; I won't get in the way of you keeping your secret until you get so pent-up and lovesick that you end up OD-ing on cough syrup, or blowing stuff up. Or both."

Xander glared at him. "Exaggerating much, drama queen? Look, all I need you guys to do is keep it to yourselves until it becomes yesterday's news in Xanderland and I get over her."

_Never gonna happen, kid,_ said a somber little voice in his head that sounded surprisingly like his uncle Marty. _You're too far gone. _

_Shut up, _Xander told the voice. _This is a minor blip, a tiny crush on a girl who barely even looks at me. It'll be over before I know it. _

"Hey, guys." Buffy came walking up to them, wearing an attractively semi-skimpy tank top and a megawatt smile. "What's with the poker faces?"

Xander could almost feel his resolve to stop being attracted to Buffy simply melt away under the influence of her actual presence. _I'm in love with her,_ he thought miserably, aware of the difference between a crush and the deeper, more constant emotion of actual love. But he swept the thought away and bravely tacked a grin onto his face. "Morning, Buffster. How was your weekend?"

"It was… eventful," Buffy said, giving Willow a very deliberate glance.

Willow caught the meaning instantly – it was a "girl talk, right now" kind of look, and she'd be neglecting her duties as best friend if she ignored it. Not that she had any inclination to; she was wildly curious about the spring in Buffy's step and the happy smile that didn't seem to want to leave her face. "Uh, boys, how about we all meet up later for lunch?"

Jesse looked confused. "But I thought we were gonna walk to History class together."

"Not today," Willow said severely, hoping Jesse would take a hint. Besides her curiosity to hear whatever Buffy had to say, she also thought it would be a good idea to keep her separated from Xander, especially since he looked at her with a softened, almost tender expression whenever he thought she wouldn't notice. _Which is bad news for our secret-keeping plan. _

"But it's, like, tradition! We can't _not_ go to History class as a group. We need each other's moral support to face Rayne." He turned to Xander. "Am I right or am I right?"

"Hm? Yeah," Xander said absently. "You're right."

But he was looking at Buffy as he said it, and Jesse suddenly saw the benefit in allowing the girls to wander off on their own. "Actually, on second thought, you girls should do your thing. It's not like we're dying to hear your opinions on the fashion section in the latest issue of _Cosmo_, or whatever."

"What's_ Cosmo?_"

"It's a chick magazine."

Xander gave him an odd look. "And how do you know that?"

"Dude, it's on like every news stand in town."

"Yeah, but that doesn't explain how you know about their fashion section," Xander said sternly.

Jesse caved. "All right, so maybe I've flipped through my mom's copies… but only because I was totally bored, I swear! And only once!"

Xander shook his head. "Sad, man. Really sad. I'm not sure we can be friends anymore, not after this. I might get tainted with your sissy-ness."

"Come on." Buffy pulled Willow away, laughing. "Let's leave the boys to their sordid confessions."

"Speaking of which," Willow said once they'd moved out of earshot, "what is it you want to share?"

"Okay…" Buffy took a deep breath. "Remember how I said that Angel wanted to wait until I felt ready to sleep with him?"

"Yeah." Willow smiled. "He is _such_ a gentleman."

"We-ell, two nights ago, I did. Feel ready, I mean."

Willow's eyes widened as the truth sank in. "So he – I mean, you – and then – I mean the two of you –" she dropped her voice to a stunned whisper. "You had sex?" The instant the words were out of her mouth she blushed furiously, looking around as though she was sure everyone on campus had heard her.

Buffy's expression softened as she recalled the events of last night. "Mm-hmm. And, Will, it was incredible. Really, _really_ amazing. We're talking trashy-romance-novel-type pleasure here, except without the trashiness."

Willow smiled at the tone in her friend's voice. "You sound happy."

"I am." Buffy smiled as well, her eyes glowing. "After everything that happened in LA with Merrick, I thought my life was over. Now I can't believe I even used to call what I did in LA 'living'."

"So, just to summarize, you _are_ happy?" Willow persisted, just to be able to hear it again. The next best thing to living out her own love story was knowing that her best friend was enjoying hers.

"Oh, yes. Put me in a gingham dress and call me Pollyanna, 'cause there's a new shiny happy girl in town." She lowered her voice as they approached the door of the History classroom. "I love him," she said, in a hushed whisper. "I don't know what I'd do without him."

Willow didn't have time to respond except with a quick smile before they were pulled into the stream of sophomores entering the classroom. Jesse and Xander had saved their seats for them, and it looked like they were still friends despite Jesse's earlier _Cosmo_ revelation.

"Where's Rayne?" Jesse asked, twisting in his seat to look at Buffy.

She shrugged. "I haven't seen him since Friday. It's weird that he's late, though."

"Uh, I think he has a pretty good reason for it," Xander said. They all turned to follow his line of sight to the doorway, and Willow gasped faintly.

Rayne limped carefully into the room, supporting one side of his body on an ebony cane to make up for the apparent uselessness of his right leg. There was no cast in sight, but Buffy thought she could see the outline of a thick bandage wrapped around his leg, just above his right knee. His face was unshaven, covered in what could almost be called a beard rather than the usual stubble, and his skin had become alarmingly pale and wan.

"What the hell happened?" Xander wondered out loud, keeping his voice too low for Rayne to hear.

Judging by the buzz of conversation among the other students in the room, he wasn't the only one wondering, but Buffy could tell that Rayne wasn't about to indulge their curiosity by answering questions about it in class.

"We'll ask him after class," she said, surveying the Watcher's damaged leg grimly. "I have a feeling he didn't just have a run-in with an unfriendly dog."

"It was more likely an unfriendly monster," Jesse said under his breath.

Buffy nodded. "Yeah. And I am _so_ going to enjoy killing it."

--


End file.
